South African tennis ace Lloyd Harris retired due to injury in his Madrid Open second round encounter against Australia's Alex di Minaur on Tuesday evening.

Di Minaur, who is ranked number 24 on the ATP Tour rankings, was in firm command throughout, leading 6-2, 3-0 when Harris called it quits.

Harris suffered a lower back injury during his first round win over Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov on Monday. He received on-court treatment after losing the second set but recovered to win the final set.

However, the two-hour, 31-minute contest against Dimitrov seemingly took its toll on Harris and he was well below his best against Di Minaur.

In his only previous ATP Tour meeting with De Minaur, Harris prevailed 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (10/8) at the hardcourt event in Tokyo in 2019.

The Australian will face third seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem in the third round in Madrid.

Harris' win on Monday was only his second ever at Masters 1000 level, following on from his first round win at the Miami Open earlier this year where he cracked the ATP Top 50 for the first time.

The Capetonian, who is is currently ranked 54th in the world, will now shift his focus to the ATP events in Rome and Lyon before the French Open starts on 24 May.

Third round

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) bt Jennifer Brady (USA x11) 7-5, 6-7 (8/10), 6-3

Dominic Thiem (AUT x3) bt Marcos Giron (USA) 6-1, 6-3

Alexander Bublik (KAZ) bt Denis Shapovalov (CAN x11) 6-4, 5-7, 6-4

Alexei Popyrin (AUS) bt Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) 6-3, 7-6 (7/4)

Kei Nishikori (JPN) bt Karen Khachanov (RUS) 6-7 (6/8), 6-2, 6-2

Yoshihito Nishioka (JPN) bt Filip Krajinovic (SRB) 6-2, 6-4

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (ESP) bt Pierre-Hugues Herbert (FRA) 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/4)

Source: News24