America's Cup 2017: Great Britain suffer broken wing and trail New Zealand 2-0 in semi-final

Great Britain sustained damage to the camber arm on Monday

Great Britain suffered a major blow to their America's Cup hopes as a broken wing derailed the first day of their semi-final against New Zealand.

Ben Ainslie's team Land Rover BAR sustained damage to their wing in the first race and were forced to retire.

They could not complete repairs in time for the second race and had to forfeit - handing New Zealand a 2-0 advantage in the series.

Another two races take place on Tuesday in the first-to-five races playoffs.

The British team tweeted: "We have forfeited racing today due to damage to our wing, we will be back tomorrow to fight another day."

The British boat came unstuck shortly after the gate two turn in the first race, and the contest was black flagged soon afterwards.

"We haven't had a failure like this before in our wing. It's a real strange one for us," Ainslie told BT Sport.

"We'd just got ourselves on the wind and there was a big crunching sound coming out of the wing. It was a pretty loud bang and we knew something was wrong."

As the highest scoring challengers, second-placed New Zealand picked their opponents, leaving Sweden to face Japan in the other play-off.

New Zealand said they chose Great Britain after studying the weather forecast, as it predicted light winds which would have favoured their boat.

In the end the wind was so light that racing was postponed on Sunday and pushed back to Monday.

In the other semi-final, Japan won the first race against Sweden but Artemis Racing levelled the scores at 1-1 in the second race.

The first team in each semi-final to win five races progresses to the challenger final for a chance to take on the American team.

Defending champions USA advanced automatically to the America's Cup matches and they will have a one-point lead over their challengers after topping the qualifying group.

Schedule

Tuesday, 6 June

Four semi-final races from 18:00-20:00 BST.

Japan v Sweden - Race three

Great Britain v New Zealand - Race three

Japan v Sweden - Race four

Great Britain v New Zealand - Race four

Full schedule

What happens next?

Holders Oracle Team USA await the winners of the challenger final in the America's Cup.

The first to seven points wins the America's Cup, or the Auld Mug as the trophy is known, with a possible 13 races to be sailed on 17-18 and 24-27 June.

The America's Cup, the oldest competition in international sport, was first raced in 1851 around the Isle of Wight and has only been won by four nations.