Angelique Kerber's tennis career ended after the former world number one and three-time Grand Slam champion lost 7:6(4), 4:6, 6:7 (6) to China's Qingwen Zheng in the quarterfinals of the Olympic tennis tournament in Paris, BTA reported.
The 6th seed and Australian Open runner-up Zheng prevailed in three sets after 3 hours and 4 minutes of play.
Kerber prevailed in the first set after a tiebreak, but the Chinese player prevailed in the second 6:4. In the decisive third set, Kerber led 4-1 but allowed a tiebreak to level at 4-4, again leading to a tiebreak, in which the Chinese player closed the match with her fourth match point.
German Kerber announced last week that the Olympics would be her last tournament. She won the Australian and US Opens in 2016, Olympic silver that year and Wimbledon in 2018. Kerber has 14 career titles and spent 34 weeks at the top of the world rankings.
The 36-year-old German has failed to regain her top form after motherhood. But she last impressed at the Olympics, where she beat former world number one Naomi Osaka, Romania's Jacqueline Christian and former US Open runner-up Leila Fernandez of Canada before losing to Zheng.
In the semifinals, Zheng will face three-time French Open champion and world number one Iga Swiatek of Poland, who in another quarterfinal beat American Danielle Collins 6-1, 2-6, 4-1 and Collins retired. Swiatek is unbeaten in 25 consecutive matches on the courts at "Roland Garros" in Paris.
The Pole started strongly and gave up only a game to her opponent in the first set. In the second, Collins broke through in the second game and this gave her confidence, as she once again took the pressure off of Swiontek and tied the sets at 6:2.
Collins suffered an injury and after a medical interruption at 0:3, she gave up at 1:4, which legalized Swiontek's victory.
"Wimbledon" champion Barbora Krejcikova was eliminated in the singles competition after a 4:6, 2:6 loss to Anna Karolina Schmidlova of Slovakia.
Schmidlova eliminated both "Wimbledon" finalists - first she defeated runner-up Jazmin Paolini in the third round, and now she has beaten champion Krejcikova to become the first Slovak woman to reach a tennis semifinal at the Summer Games since 1988.
Krejcikova was unable to adjust to the heat and high humidity in Paris and looked exhausted on the court.
In the semifinals, Schmidlova will face the winner of tonight's quarterfinal between Croatia's Donna Vekic and Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk.