Rafael Nadal has announced his withdrawal from the French Open because of a troublesome wrist injury.
The Spaniard breezed into round three of the competition with a straight-sets win over Facundo Bagnis on Thursday – his landmark 200th Grand Slam win.
However, the nine-time winner of the event will play no further part at Roland Garros this year after revealing that the pain has been getting progressively worse.
“I will work hard to be fit for Wimbledon,” Nadal told reporters in what he described as the “hardest” press conference of his career. “I need a couple of weeks. At the moment it’s day by day.
“It’s a problem with my wrist. Yesterday I played with an injection – I could play but last night I started to feel more and more pain, and today I felt I could not move my wrist.
“It’s not broken, but if I continue to play it will be broken in a few days. This is a very bad position, but that’s life. If this was not Roland Garros I probably wouldn’t taken the risk of playing in the first couple of days.”
Nadal’s withdrawal from the competition now opens up the way for second seed Andy Murray, who earned a place in the last 16 on Friday with a comfortable win over Ivo Karlovic.
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