On Jan. 17, 2017, the Golden State Warriors held a rather elaborate ceremony at what was then just a big pile of dirt in San Francisco. The ownership group, which had invested approximately $1.5 billion to turn this pile of dirt into a game-changing stadium when Chase Center opens later this year, sat in the front row.

Head coach Steve Kerr and newly acquired superstar Kevin Durant were the headliners. They'd only known each other for a few months, but their timing was already on point.

"Night after night, the feel we get from the crowd -- can you talk about what it feels like to be a Warrior?" Kerr asked Durant.

"It's different when you're on the team and when you're an opposing player. I can tell you that," Durant said. "When you step out there and put on that jersey, just that support -- no matter if we're playing Cleveland or we're playing the worst team in the league -- they're still going to support and be there to cheer for us. To go out there and play in front of them is amazing. It makes us want to play harder as well. We love the support and every time we go out there we try to play as hard as we can."

Kerr paused, then asked, "How's the coaching been so far this year?"

Without missing a beat, Durant said, "It's been all right."

"We'll try to step it up a little bit," Kerr deadpanned. "Maybe get you the ball more."

Durant smiled as the crowd of San Francisco politicians, Warriors season-ticket holders and curious onlookers yucked it up.

"Yeah, please do," Durant said.

Then the guests of honor put on hard hats, grabbed shovels and posed for photos.

It was a beautiful, uncomplicated January day. The Warriors' future seemed so bright back then. And it was. Durant would go on to lead Golden State to back-to-back titles, and players would speak openly about taking less money to keep this group together once everyone hit free agency. The runway seemed clear for this group to win and keep winning once they moved from Oracle Arena in Oakland into this new state-of-the art building across San Francisco Bay.

But all of that breezy optimism has faded now that the team has arrived at its final game in Oakland on Thursday in Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors.

Durant has been lost for the remainder of the series -- and probably most of next season -- with a ruptured Achilles tendon. His impending free agency had been hanging over the franchise like soupy San Francisco fog all season. And this injury has essentially shut down the airport completely, as it's impossible to pilot through this cloud cover of uncertainty.

Will Durant still decide to opt out of the final year of his contract and become a free agent? Several league sources told ESPN that they expect Durant to follow through and hit free agency, despite the long recovery time ahead of him. And if he does, will the Warriors follow through and offer him the five-year maximum contract extension worth $221 million? Will other teams offer their maximum four-year, $164 million contract? Several league sources told ESPN that they expect the Warriors and Durant's other suitors to offer the maximum allowable contract, despite the serious injury.

Which means Durant's free agency will have the same leaguewide impact it did when he chose the Warriors in 2016 and elevated a great team to a dynastic team.

The Warriors' dynasty will either roll over into the new building, or its window could start closing, just as Oracle Arena's doors are shutting for good on NBA games.

All season, there has been a nostalgia about the team packing up and moving from its East Bay home of the past 47 years. The franchise has honored great players from its past and each of its eras, including when the franchise didn't win much of significance, but always had passionate, gritty fans who connected deeply with the team.

After the Warriors dropped Games 3 and 4 of the Finals at home to fall behind 3-1 last week, stunned fans lingered and took selfies with ushers and security guards as everyone tried to come to grips with the realization that this all might be over a lot sooner than anyone expected.

This golden era for the franchise, which began when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson grew into the Splash Brothers eight years ago, might be dimming a lot sooner than anyone anticipated. The joyful team culture had been fading for some time now -- a casualty of the inexorable media cycle, clashing of egos and generalized organizational fatigue.

But while things haven't felt fresh or new in a while, Oakland had a way of keeping everyone grounded. The team still practices and has its offices at a Marriott hotel in the Oakland Convention Center. The elevator buttons leading to the facility have been out for years. Just last week, when Durant was coming in to get extra work against some of the team's G Leaguers, you'd see some of those players lingering outside the hotel's business center and restaurant on the second floor, mixing in with guests and convention-goers. Players and coaches often walk across the street to restaurants in the area like Café Gabriela or Ratto's, eating lunch or taking coffee alongside fans and regular folks.

Next season, there will be no such mixing. Everything will be state of the art. Even the art out front of the arena will be world-class, something tourists will visit in the same breath as the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Warriors have taken great care to translate the elements of their old home to their new one, from the design of the stadium, which will have the same low roof and steep concrete stands that help Oracle Arena roar so loudly, to maintaining their presence in Oakland by keeping offices of the team's foundation there.

But it won't be the same. Because the whole point of moving was to evolve and grow. To do what Silicon Valley companies have always done: Start small in a funky garage, build a killer product and scale up to bigger offices.

The challenge is to hold on to the right things as you grow. To know what is essential, and what is simply nostalgia.

With their backs against the wall in a must-win NBA Finals Game 5 in Toronto, the Golden State Warriors leaned on an old friend to extend the series: historically great 3-point shooting.

The Dubs are the defining team of our time in part because they've turned the basketball court inside-out, winning games from the perimeter as opposed to the interior. Check out these bonkers numbers from Monday's win:

• Golden State made 20 3s while shooting 47% from beyond the arc.

• The Warriors made just 18 2s while shooting 45% inside the arc.

• It was just the third time that a team won a Finals game with more made 3s than 2s, and just the fourth time that a team won a Finals game despite making 18 or fewer 2-point buckets.

The Dubs caught fire from downtown when they needed to and became only the second team in Finals history to sink 20 or more 3s in a game. For context, the 2004 Detroit Pistons had 21 made 3s in their entire five-game series victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2004 Finals.

Those days are long gone, thanks in part to a pair of world-class jump-shooters who are seeking their third consecutive world championship.

Both Splash Brothers come into Thursday night's Game 6 (9 p.m. ET on ABC/ESPN App) with 20 made 3s this series, but Klay Thompson has gotten there on 35 attempts, compared with 56 for Stephen Curry. Thompson has been a lifesaver in the four games he has played in this series -- he missed Game 3 with a hamstring strain -- hitting a whopping 57% of his 3s. The rest of the Warriors have combined to make just 33%.

Of course, Thompson is a great shooter -- a quick look at his shot chart from this season proves that -- but in the course of this five-year run, Thompson has shown himself to be a monster in the biggest postseason games.

Thompson's big-game résumé is as good as anybody else's in the league, and his timely shooting is once again proving to be best in class in these Finals. Through five games in this series, six players have tried at least 50 shots. All but one of them has an effective field goal percentage between 46.0 and 51.4. Thompson has an eFG% of 65.8.

It gets crazier.

Per Second Spectrum, of the 13 players who have tried at least 20 shots in these Finals, Thompson is taking the toughest looks. Based on shot location, defender distance and other situational factors, Second Spectrum estimates the eFG% of every shot in every game. Their model suggests that Thompson should have the lowest eFG% of any volume shooter in this series. Instead, his is the highest by a mile -- his actual eFG% is light-years ahead of everyone else's.

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In other words, Thompson's shot-making is both the most efficient and the most impressive so far in this series.

Perhaps the best example of this came in Game 5, when he turned a post-up play into one of the strangest off-the-dribble 3s of the postseason.

Simply put, Thompson is a man on fire. Even if he goes 0-for-15 from 3-point range in Game 6, he'd still be making 40% of his 3s in this series. That's nuts, especially considering he has been banged up.

Is it sustainable? Maybe not at this level. Thompson's average playoff eFG% since this dynastic run started in 2015 is 53.9%, about 5 percentage points better than expected given the shot quality. But the Warriors only need Thompson to keep firing at this rate two more times. They simply can't afford a bad game from either Steph or Klay to pull this off.

A closer look at that table above reveals that the four least-efficient scorers in this series are all Warriors, while seven of the top nine are Raptors. If the Warriors are going to win Game 6, not only must the Splash Brothers be productive, but Golden State's role players also have to be better. The Raptors are averaging 111.0 points per game this series, and even though Klay and Steph are averaging a combined 57.4 per game, the way the Warriors' role players have played, it's hard to imagine them catching Toronto's offense without a lot of extra splashes.

Toronto knows that too, and without the reinjured Kevin Durant to worry about, the Raptors will devote their best defensive resources to slowing down the Dubs' perimeter attack.

Thanks to injuries, this is the thinnest Warriors team we've seen in five years, and it's also true that this Raptors squad is the best defense the Dubs have faced in the Finals during their dynasty. In a make-or-miss league, that's an unfortunate combination for Golden State.

But if Klay has shown us anything in this series, it's that champions know how to defy expectations.

We've all seen the ridiculous moon-orbiting blasts and never-ending barrage of home runs. On Sunday, the Nationals tied a record with four consecutive home runs. On Monday, the Diamondbacks and Phillies set a record by combining for 13 home runs. On Tuesday, the Braves hit four home runs in one inning. Jerad Eickhoff allowed five home runs on Monday, and Chris Archer did it on Tuesday.

Entering Wednesday's games, 25 players had already hit 17 home runs, putting them on a 40-homer pace. The single-season record for players with 40 home runs is 17 in 1996. As recently as 2014, only one player -- Nelson Cruz -- hit 40 home runs.

Needless to say, MLB is once again set to shatter the record for total home runs. There were 6,105 home runs in 2017. We're on pace for 6,566 in 2019 -- nearly 1,000 more home runs than there were in 2018. It's not just the quantity but also the apparent cheapness of many of the home runs, seemingly lazy fly balls that land in the bleachers. As Buster Olney said on his podcast the other day, "How many times have we heard announcers say, 'I can't believe that one went out'?"

Compared with last season, runs per game are up 0.27, and home runs are up 0.20 per game. Yes, hitters are going for launch angle and all-or-nothing swings while accepting even more strikeouts, but something is clearly up with the ball. The juiced ball of 2017 has returned with rockets attached this time.

Now it's time for a little history lesson. This kind of dramatic season-to-season increase in offense has occurred at various times throughout major league history, with increases traced directly to changes (intentional or not) to the ball. Let's look at some of those seasons and see what happened.

1911: Introducing cork

Runs per game: up 0.68

Home runs per game: up .07

For decades, the National League (and later the American) used a ball produced by the A.G. Spalding Company, founded by White Sox pitcher Albert Spalding in 1876 to manufacture a standard ball for the new professional league. Prior to that, balls were of inconsistent standards and quality. (The American League ball bore a "Reach" label, but Spalding was the actual manufacturer.)

That ball included a rubber core, but during the 1910 World Series, a cork-centered ball was used -- yes, imagine changing the ball that had been used all season for the World Series -- and the cork-centered ball became the new standard. Even though it was still the dead ball era, the increase in runs per game remains the largest year-to-year increase in any season since 1900.

The overall major league batting average increased from .249 to .266. In 1910, 15 players hit .300 across the two leagues, and only three (Ty Cobb, Nap Lajoie and Sherry Magee) slugged above .470. In 1911, 30 players hit .300 and 13 slugged above .470.

Leading the way was Cobb, who hit .419 after hitting .382 the season before. He followed with a .409 mark in 1912. He went from 35 doubles and 13 triples to 47 doubles and 24 triples. Shoeless Joe Jackson, in his first full season in the majors, hit .408. Sam Crawford, Cobb's Hall of Fame Tigers teammate, was a 31-year-old veteran with a .305 career average. He hit .378.

The offensive gains proved short-lived, however. Runs per game went from 4.51 in 1911 and 4.53 in 1912 all the way down to 3.56 by 1916. According to John McMurray of SABR's dead ball era committee in a 2011 New York Times article, a pitcher named Russ Ford started scuffing the ball, which soon became a widespread tactic. Add various forms of the spitball, and offense fell back to low levels.

1930: The year the National League hit .303

Runs per game: up 0.36

Home runs per game: up .08

The so-called "lively ball" era began in 1920 (runs increased from 3.88 to 4.36 from 1919 to 1920), though the initial increase wasn't so much the result of a different ball. There were two other reasons: (A) banning the spitball; (B) using new balls throughout the game rather than dirty, scuffed-up ones. Babe Ruth began slugging home runs, and the new style of power hitting quickly took over.

The most notorious high-offense season in major league history saw an average of 5.55 runs per game, the highest of the live ball era. Next highest: 5.19 in 1929 and 5.14 in 2000. The National League averaged 5.68 runs per game and hit a collective .303. The New York Giants hit .319 as a team, and the Phillies allowed 7.69 runs per game with a 6.71 ERA.

Some of the individual highlights:

-- Hack Wilson hit 56 home runs with a record 191 RBIs.

-- Bill Terry of the Giants hit .401.

-- Chuck Klein hit .386 with 107 extra-base hits and 170 RBIs.

-- Freddie Lindstrom of the Giants hit .379 and became one of the worst Hall of Fame selections ever on the strength of that season.

-- Brooklyn's Babe Herman hit .393 with 35 home runs.

-- Cubs pitcher Guy Bush finished with a 6.20 ERA. He still went 15-10.

That was just in the National League.

What happened? The manufacturer insisted that nothing had changed. "There has been absolutely no change in the major league baseball in the past five years," Spalding president Julian Curtis said that June. "There isn't even a change in the yarn. If we bought our yarn, there might be, but we don't. We have our own yarn mills, and there has been no change in the manufacture or quality; no change in the wrapping; no change in the covers; no change in the rubber or cork."

Giants manager John McGraw suggested the owners needed to fix the ball. "It has taken the confidence out of the pitchers and is so lively the fielders cannot handle it," he said. He also proposed moving the pitching distance two feet closer to home plate. Cubs president Bill Veeck offered that the fans liked all the hitting. "It's the punch that has made baseball over in the last 10 years," he said.

In the end, it was too much offense, even for the owners. The National League changed the ball for 1931, adding a slightly thicker cover and raising the seam. Offense fell from 5.68 runs per game to 4.48, the league average declined from .303 to .277, and home runs dropped from 892 to 493. The American League, however, apparently didn't change its ball, and runs per game remained above 5.0, including 5.67 in 1936 -- just shy of the National League's mark in 1930.

1977: Welcome aboard, Rawlings

Runs per game: up 0.48

Home runs per game: up 0.29

A New York Times story from 1975 detailed the end of Spalding's reign as MLB's baseball manufacturer. With its contract set to expire after the 1976 season, the company reportedly asked for a 5% price increase per ball for 1975 and another 5% for 1976. According to the article, Spalding sold about 250,000 balls per year to MLB at a cost of $2 apiece. A 5% increase to $2.10 per ball would have increased MLB's annual cost to $525,000.

Spalding had produced every baseball ever used in major league baseball, but it was kicked to the curb over an additional $25,000. "The reason is price," said Lee MacPhail, president of the American League. "We're sorry we're ending such a long and proud relationship. But we've been able to work something out with another manufacturer."

That manufacturer became Rawlings in 1977. Before it took over, however, offense nose-dived in 1976 to 3.99 runs per game. Only four players across the majors hit 30 home runs, and only 22 hit even 20. With Rawlings presumably manufacturing a higher quality ball in 1977 (plus new expansion teams in Seattle and Toronto slightly diluting the pitching), 19 players hit 30-plus home runs, and 56 hit at least 20. Among the big hitters:

-- George Foster of the Reds slugged 52 home runs, the first 50-homer slugger since Willie Mays in 1965.

-- Rod Carew hit .388 and slugged .570, the only full season he slugged .500 in his career.

-- The Dodgers had four players hit 30-plus home runs (Steve Garvey, Reggie Smith, Dusty Baker, Davey Lopes), the first time four teammates had done that (11 teams have done it since, all since 1995).

The 4.47 runs per game in 1977 were not topped until something strange happened in 1987.

1987: The rabbit ball

Runs per game: up 0.31

Home runs per game: up 0.15

The first sentence in Frank Deford's column in the July 27 edition of Sports Illustrated asked the question on everyone's mind: "If the baseball is juiced up, who's responsible?" Deford dismissed any conspiracy to change the ball -- something would have leaked if that were the case, he surmised -- and attempted rational explanations for the home run explosion that season. Batters were stronger, a generation of pitchers was on the defensive due to growing up facing aluminum bats and throwing too many breaking balls, and the best athletes had chosen hitting as their trade.

Or this: "The last incredible generation of pitchers -- Gibson, Marichal, Koosman, Seaver, Palmer, Sutton, Hunter, John, Jenkins, Carlton, Tiant, the Perrys and the Niekros -- was the product of that postwar time when traditional philosophy still prevailed: discipline and dedication, the Protestant ethic and the commitment to the long haul." Pitchers weren't tough enough. Or something. George Will went with the aluminum bat theory and increased weight training. Pirates GM Syd Thrift said pitchers were being rushed to the majors. Braves catcher Ozzie Virgil said the bats were better.

OK ... except the 1988 season saw one of the biggest drops in offense in the game's history. Runs per game fell from 4.72 to 4.14, not just below 1987 figures but well below 1986 or 1985 or 1984. There were 3,813 home runs in 1986 (which was a record for total home runs, though not quite the highest per-game average), then 4,458 in 1987, then 3,180 in 1988. The MLB-wide batting average went from .258 to .263 to .254.

It was the ball. That was the prevailing theory from those in the game. Tigers manager Sparky Anderson referred to the "nitroglycerin ball." Astros pitcher Mike Scott said the balls were going farther. Reds manager Pete Rose said the ball was definitely livelier.

Indeed, some individual numbers were eye-popping. A's rookie Mark McGwire hit 49 home runs. So did Andre Dawson. Twenty-eight players hit 30-plus home runs, compared with 13 in 1986. Singles- and doubles-hitting Wade Boggs, who hit 22 home runs the previous three seasons, hit 24; he never hit more than 11 the rest of his career. Tony Gwynn hit .370, Boggs hit .363, and Paul Molitor hit .353 and had a 39-game hitting streak. Larry Sheets hit .316 with 31 home runs for the Orioles. (He finished at .266 and 94 in his career.)

Four of the six highest individual home run seasons in the 1980s came in 1987. Eight of the top 14 OPS seasons in the decade came in 1987. As Matthew Pouliot pointed out in an article several years ago, perhaps no player benefited from the 1987 rabbit ball more than Dawson. He won MVP honors for a last-place Cubs team on the strength of those 49 home runs and a league-leading 137 RBIs. His second-highest home run total in his career: 32. Without that 49-homer season and MVP award, he might not have made the Hall of Fame.

Then, just like that, the ball was dead. In 1987, only four starting pitchers had a sub-3.00 ERA. In 1988, 20 pitchers achieved that mark. The sport entered a five-year span with a relative lull in offense.

1993: Juiced players or juiced ball?

Runs per game: up 0.48

Home runs per game: up 0.17

After the lull came the explosion. In a two-year span, runs per game went from 4.12 to 4.60 to 4.92. Home runs per game increased from 0.72 to 0.89 to 1.03. Yes, the Rockies joined the National League in 1993, helping to create more offense, but that alone hardly explains a half-run per game increase. Indeed, the American League -- without games in Colorado -- went from 4.32 runs to 4.71 to 5.23. No doubt, PED use was starting to spread across the sport, but the PED theory assumes the unlikelihood that everyone started using all at once.

So it was the ball. Something changed in the 1992-93 offseason. The full impact was felt more intensely over two seasons, but some of the individual increases in 1993 were dramatic:

-- In 1992, 10 players hit 30 home runs, and two hit more than 35: Juan Gonzalez (43) and Mark McGwire (42). In 1993, 22 players hit 30 home runs, and 10 hit more than 35.

-- Seven players in 1993 posted an OPS above 1.000. Over five seasons from 1988 to 1992, only five players topped 1.000.

-- Barry Bonds slugged .677 in 1993, the highest figure since Mickey Mantle in 1961.

-- Andres Galarraga hit .370 (in Colorado), and John Olerud hit .363 with 54 doubles for the Blue Jays.

-- Ken Griffey Jr. went from 27 home runs to 45.

In 1994, things went completely nuts:

-- When the strike hit in August, Matt Williams (43), Griffey (40), Jeff Bagwell (39) and Frank Thomas (38) were trying to chase down Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs.

-- Three players -- Bagwell (.750), Thomas (.729) and Albert Belle (.714) -- slugged over .700, which had been accomplished just three times since World War II (Ted Williams, Mantle and Stan Musial). Bagwell's .750 mark was higher than anybody's since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1927.

-- Tony Gwynn hit .394.

And so on. So what happened? One suggestion is that it was around this time that Rawlings switched from hand manufacture of the core to machine manufacture, which resulted in more tightly wound cores. The offensive gains were only partially realized in 1993 due to some leftover balls from 1992 still existing in the pipeline.

The owners certainly realized what was happening. The fans loved the long ball. Attendance increased from 26,529 fans per game in 1992 to 30,964 in 1993 to 31,256 in 1994.

There's your history lesson. It's a reminder that a baseball is a lot more complex object than it might appear.

World under-20 heptathlon champion receives messages of support as she targets a 2020 return following a knee operation

Niamh Emerson is to miss the rest of the summer season after undergoing surgery on her knee.

The world under-20 heptathlon champion has suffered with knee problems in the past but had to have an operation at the beginning of this month after partially tearing her patella tendon while competing at the Hypomeeting in Götzis.

“So it turns out I partially tore my patella tendon,” Emerson wrote in a post on Instagram.

“Sad that my 2019 season isn’t a thing any more but some things just don’t work out because something greater is waiting.

“See you on the track in 2020.”

After claiming Commonwealth bronze in Australia last year, Emerson went on to win her under-20 title in Finland in the summer and then secured European indoor pentathlon silver behind her fellow Briton Katarina Johnson-Thompson in Glasgow at the beginning of March.

She went to Götzis with a goal of achieving the heptathlon qualification mark for the IAAF World Championships in Doha but was forced to withdraw during the high jump and has now refocused on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

After posting details of her knee surgery, which she underwent on June 1, on Instagram, Emerson received a number of messages of support from fellow athletes and fans.

“2020 will be waiting for you with open arms! Back stronger and even better,” wrote 2000 Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis.

Double Olympic heptathlon medallist Kelly Sotherton posted an emoji of a sad face and added: “There’s always something better waiting to happen.”

The British sprinter’s improved start technique gives him greater confidence than ever before

Reece Prescod believes a new and improved start technique will help him enjoy his best season yet.

“Not many people know this but I used about five different starts in 2018,” says the 23-year-old Londoner, who received a lot of help from British Athletics’ biomechanics team.

“I was racing seriously but also experimenting with my start, with different angles, to see what worked best.

“Then I practised it again in the indoor season and ran 6.53 which was good and showed things were going well.”

Prescod opened his season in Shanghai last month with a swift 9.97 clocking to place fourth in a race that saw Noah Lyles beat fellow American Christian Coleman narrowly – both men running 9.86.

The European silver medallist was pleased with his first race and believes he will improve during the season. Who knows, this might even be the season when Linford Christie’s British 100m record of 9.87 – set in Stuttgart in 1993 – will fall.

“Why not?” says Prescod. “The guys ran 9.86 the other day in Shanghai and I was in there with them and not far behind. So I think it can be done for sure.”

If Prescod is the man to break it, then it could happen at a Diamond League. “My season is pretty much going to revolve around the Diamond League events,” he says. “Of course I’ll also run the British Champs. Then the Diamond League final and World Champs.

“I’m lucky I had a good 2018 so I am able to get into the Diamond League events far easier this year than before. It’s a long season so I don’t want to be going too hard too early.”

Prescod was speaking to AW at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park during a launch event for the Müller Anniversary Games on July 20-21.

The day saw young athletes being put through their paces on a tumbleator – similar to the one Mo Farah famously fell on during London Marathon week – but Prescod had no similar plans to put his own body at risk and was happy to support others as they
had a go. A similarly cautious mindset means we will probably not see him running 200m much this year. He says he will definitely race it seriously at some point in the future but, for now, he prefers to stick to 100m.

“I have to be careful running around bends,” he says. “I got a lot of injuries in the past due to my size and build and running hard on the bend, so I don’t want to risk that again. But I will run one seriously at some stage.”

Until then, Prescod will focus on 100m. His new and improved start gives him greater confidence than ever before, but what is his advice for young sprinters when it comes to starting?

“Just keep it simple,” he says. “Don’t overcomplicate things. When I was young I just used to pop up, look at the sky and just run. It’s only really when you get down to maybe sub-10.3 or 10.4 level that you need to start focusing on it a lot more.”

When he looks back on his technique from his teenage years, what does he think now? “I just laugh when I look back at it!” he says.

British number three Heather Watson lost to Greece's Maria Sakkari in the first round of the Nature Valley Open in a rainy Nottingham.

The 27-year-old, who made the quarter-finals at Surbiton last week, was beaten 6-4 6-3 by Sakkari, who is ranked 82 places higher in the world.

Fellow Briton Harriet Dart beat Vera Lapko in three sets to book a last-16 match with Australian Ajla Tomljanovic.

Compatriot Katie Swan lost to American Bernarda Pera 7-6 (7-5) 6-1.

For a second successive day, no play was possible on the grass courts at the Nottingham Tennis Centre with action moving indoors and on to a hard surface.

The all-British match-up between former top-50 player Dan Evans and Jack Draper in the men's tournament has been postponed until Thursday.

Elsewhere Canada's 2016 Wimbledon runner-up Milos Raonic overcame France's Jo Wilfried-Tsonga 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-1) in a match that stretched to two hours and 29 minutes in the ATP event in Stuttgart.