Australian young gun Thanasi Kokkinakis has been forced to give the complete grass court season a miss, as he continues to recover from a shoulder surgery he had undergone in December 2015.
The 20-year-old – who hasn’t played since the Valencia Open last year – will also fail to partake at the prestigious Wimbledon Championships among the other grass-court tournaments.
“Shattered I can’t play through the grass this year,” Kokkinakis corroborated his absence via Twitter, implying that he will not be able to use protected ranking to make the cut to Rio Olympics.
Meanwhile, the 95th-ranked Facundo Bagnis of Argentina has been named as Kokkinakis’ replacement in the Wimbledon draw.
