Tennis.com reports that defending champion Kim Clijsters will withdraw from the Western & Southern Open following an abdominal injury that forced her out of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
Clijsters, 28, has a partial tear in her left stomach muscle. After retiring in the second set of Tuesday’s match against China’s Jie Zheng, Clijsters said stomach muscle tightness bothered her during her warm-up and worsened when she started serving.
“Before the match, I got taped to try and protect the muscle as much as possible so that I wouldn’t make it worse,” Clijsters said in a press conference. “And during my match I just felt like, yeah, it just went worse and worse.”
The World No. 2 has had a spate of injuries this year, including her shoulder, wrist and right ankle. Since March she has withdrawn from five tournaments and retired in two.
She said she would “try to do everything to obviously be ready for the US Open,” where she’s the two-time defending champion.
Today, tennis.com said her coach, Wim Fissette, told a Belgian newspaper she was merely “hopeful” about playing in the Grand Slam.
The Belgian player’s absence tinges an otherwise celebratory year for the nine-day W&S, which debuts a new combined format featuring simultaneous play between genders. Qualifying begins Saturday at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.
Clijsters had not officially withdrawn from the W&S as of 3 p.m. today, tournament officials said.
cincinnati.com
No big surprise there and probably for the best if she wants to have any chance in New York at the end of the month.
Clijsters, 28, has a partial tear in her left stomach muscle. After retiring in the second set of Tuesday’s match against China’s Jie Zheng, Clijsters said stomach muscle tightness bothered her during her warm-up and worsened when she started serving.
“Before the match, I got taped to try and protect the muscle as much as possible so that I wouldn’t make it worse,” Clijsters said in a press conference. “And during my match I just felt like, yeah, it just went worse and worse.”
The World No. 2 has had a spate of injuries this year, including her shoulder, wrist and right ankle. Since March she has withdrawn from five tournaments and retired in two.
She said she would “try to do everything to obviously be ready for the US Open,” where she’s the two-time defending champion.
Today, tennis.com said her coach, Wim Fissette, told a Belgian newspaper she was merely “hopeful” about playing in the Grand Slam.
The Belgian player’s absence tinges an otherwise celebratory year for the nine-day W&S, which debuts a new combined format featuring simultaneous play between genders. Qualifying begins Saturday at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason.
Clijsters had not officially withdrawn from the W&S as of 3 p.m. today, tournament officials said.
cincinnati.com
No big surprise there and probably for the best if she wants to have any chance in New York at the end of the month.
No comments:
Post a Comment