ROME — Andy Murray and Angelique Kerber, the top-ranked men’s and women’s professional tennis players, have charted largely parallel wayward courses in 2017, struggling to summon the form that earned them their top rankings last year.
Neither will head to the French Open, which begins May 28, with momentum of any sort, after both lost in their first matches at the Italian Open this week. Murray fell in straight sets to 29th-ranked Fabio Fognini on Monday night in front of a raucous Italian home crowd. Kerber followed Murray out of the tournament on Tuesday, dropping the final 10 games against a qualifier, 68th-ranked Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, in a 6-4, 6-0 defeat in only 56 minutes.