Tamara Korpatsch hits out at doubles partner Harmony Tan following withdrawal

Harmony Tan played Serena Williams late into the night on Tuesday, securing a three-hour, 11-minute victory over the 23-time Grand Slam champion on Centre Court that evidently left her unable to compete in her scheduled doubles match this afternoon, withdrawing citing a left thigh injury.

And partner Tamara Korpatsch is not happy about it.

“She can’t run cause she played a 3-hour match yesterday,” Korpatsch posted on an Instagram story. “Sorry, but I’ve played 6:33h in one day and played a singles match the next day.”

The 27-year-old German, who lost her first-round singles match to Heather Watson on Monday, was due to face No. 15 seeds Raluca Olaru and Nadiia Kichenok alongside Tan before the Frenchwoman messaged Korpatsch with the disappointing news.

“[She] let me wait here 1 hour before the match start,” she continued on an Instagram post. “I'm very sad, disappointed and also very angry that I can't play my 1st Doubles Grand Slam. And It's really not fair for me. I didn’t deserve that. She asked me before the tournament if we wanna play doubles and I said yes, I didn’t ask her, she asked me!

“If you're broken after a 3h Match the day before, you can't play professional,” she concluded. “That's my opinion.”

The 24-year-old Tan is also playing her first Wimbledon main draw, having cracked the Top 100 earlier this season. She rallied from a break down in both the first and final sets to not only win the match in a match tiebreaker but also charm a pro-Williams crowd.

“When I saw the draw, I was really scared!” she said in her on-court interview. “It’s Serena Williams, she’s a legend and I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, how can I play?’ If I could win one or two games, it would have been really good for me!”

Tan, who indeed played a deeply physical match against Williams, is yet to comment on Korpatsch’s online outburst—presumably because she is preparing to face No. 32 seed Sara Sorribes Tormo for a spot in the singles third round.