10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has withdrawn from this year’s Madrid Open due to a right shoulder injury.
The Frenchman was due to play Spain’s David Ferrer in the second round at the Caja Magica. Earlier this week the Frenchman won his first clay-court match this season after overcoming Andrey Kuznetsova in three close sets. Tsonga revealed that the shoulder issue has been troubling him since a training session last week.
“The problem is I stretch a muscle in my shoulders. I don’t want to take any risk.” Said Tsonga.
“It’s something I did, I think, last week on the practice. I had a little bit of pain from the match of Kuznetsov.”
Cautiously optimistic about his latest setback, the world No.11 is remaining coy about his participating in next week’s Rome Open with his home grand slam swiftly approaching. Tsonga is a two-time quarter-finalist at the Italian Masters, but suffered a second round exit last year.
“For the moment I will see over the next few days, how it goes. I’ll take a decision later if I go or not.” He explained about playing Rome.
“I don’t want to take any risk anymore because there is other tournaments in a few weeks. I want to play them 100%.”
Since winning back-to-back titles in Rotterdam and Marseille, Tsonga has only won one match on the tour. He took a break from the sport in March to welcome the arrival of his first child.
As a consequence of Tsonga’s withdrawal, Ferrer will have to wait a little longer to secure his 700th win on the tour. The Spaniard is on the verge of becoming only the 13th player in the Open Era to reach the 700 milestone. Ferrer will instead play the winner of the mach between Kei Nishikori and Diego Schwartzmann in the third round.
- Additional reporting by Adam Addicott.
