Katie Boulter falls to straight-sets defeat to Jasmine Paolini at Madrid Open

Her exit leaves Sonay Kartal and Emma Raducanu as the last Brits in action in the women’s draw

Boulter was unable to back up her gritty three-set win in the first round, her first WTA victory on clay (Getty Images)

Katie Boulter’s promising start to the clay-court season came to an abrupt end with a straight-sets defeat to Jasmine Paolini in Madrid.

The Italian has considerably more experience and pedigree on clay, reaching the French Open final last year, and it showed in a lopsided match which took exactly an hour.

Sixth seed Paolini won 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the third round in the Spanish capital, having received a first-round bye.

Paolini raced to a 2-0 lead before being briefly pegged back, but after conceding serve once she raced through the next nine games as Boulter proved unable to back up her dogged three-set win over Katerina Siniakova in the first round - her first WTA win on the red dirt.

The British No 1 has played minimal matches on clay, especially during the injury-disrupted earlier period of her career, with this tournament marking just her fifth main-draw appearance on the surface. Her lack of experience told as Paolini’s variety and combination of power and delicate drop shots left her exposed.

Boulter’s powerful gamestyle means she has a tendency to overhit and she racked up errors against Paolini, conceding 21 unforced errors in the match.

From 5-0 up in the second set Paolini’s serve wobbled and Boulter took advantage, but she was unable to build on her momentum and the two-time major finalist served out at the second time of asking. She will play Greece’s Maria Sakkari or Poland’s Magda Linette for a place in the fourth round.

Brits Sonay Kartal and Emma Raducanu are in action later on Friday in the WTA 1000 event, with Kartal playing in-form Elina Svitolina, who recently lifted the Rouen Open title, and British No. 2 Raducanu facing another Ukrainian in 24th seed Marta Kostyuk.