PARIS – Poland’s Iga Swiatek will be aiming for a third French Open title – and second straight – when the clay-court Grand Slam begins in 10 days as Spanish Rafael Nadal and Nick Kyrgios of Australia will miss the classy tournament.
“To be ready for Roland Garros I need to recover right now. I´m going to take couple of days off. Since Stuttgart I wasn´t really able to recover with that tight schedule that we have on WTA,” Swiatek said, referring to a tournament in Germany last month.
The French Open runs from May 28 to June 11.
Swiatek won the French Open in 2020 and 2022. She was also a two-time defending champion in Rome and was on a 14-match winning streak at the Foro Italico.
It was 2-2 in the third when Swiatek stopped after more than two hours of play. She won the first set 6-2 before Rybakina took the second set 7-6 (3).
During the second-set tiebreaker, Swiatek grasped her right knee after shifting directions a few times behind the baseline. Close to tears, she took a medical timeout after the set and left the court. When she returned, her upper right thigh was bandaged. Then after four more games, she retired.
The right thigh injury that forced top-ranked Swiatek to retire during her Italian Open quarterfinal “shouldn´t be anything serious,” the Polish player said.
“I felt pain in my right thigh. It was pretty sudden. At the beginning I didn´t really know if it was serious or not,” Swiatek said according to AP.
Elsewhere, Nadal will miss the French Open after failing to regain full fitness from a hip injury suffered at the Australian Open in January, and the 14-times Roland Garros winner added he expects to retire following the 2024 season.
Nadal, who has dominated the claycourt season for close to two decades, has competed at Roland Garros every year since claiming the first of his 22 majors in Paris in 2005.
“I’ll look to be 100% ready for next year, which I believe will be the last year of my professional career,” Nadal told a news conference at his tennis academy in Mallorca, Spain.
“The evolution of the injury I sustained in Australia has not gone as I would have liked. I have lost goals along the way, and Roland Garros becomes impossible.”
Nadal said he needs to stop playing for the foreseeable future to make a full recovery and return for what he anticipates will be his farewell season.
“I’ll not establish a date for my return. I’ll see how my body responds and take it from there,” said the 36-year-old, who is tied with Novak Djokovic with a men’s record 22 slam titles. “If I keep playing at this moment, I don’t think I can be there next year.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back in the highest level and compete for Grand Slams. What I will try to do is to give myself the opportunity to go back to what could be my final year competing at the highest level.”
French Open organisers said on Twitter: “We can’t imagine how hard this decision was. We’ll definitely miss you at this year’s Roland Garros. Take care of yourself to come back stronger on court. Hoping to see you next year in Paris.”
Medvedev said the French Open draw would now be wide open.
“Even if he wouldn’t be 100% physically, but decided to play, he’d be a favourite,” Medvedev said in an on-court interview at the Italian Open.
“Hopefully he can come back, play some more Slams… He’s an amazing player, amazing athlete, one of the best in history.”
Nadal overcame a niggling foot injury to beat Casper Ruud in last year’s French Open final. But he has struggled with his latest issue and has not competed since January after hurting his hip flexor in his second-round match against Mackenzie McDonald that effectively ended his Melbourne Park title defence.
Nadal was initially set to miss up to eight weeks but skipped claycourt tournaments in Madrid and Rome to build his fitness after being ruled out of events at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Barcelona earlier this season.
Nadal’s 14 French Open titles are the most by any player at a single major. He boasts a stunning 112-3 record in Paris and is widely regarded as the ‘King of Clay’.
“With what that tournament is for me, you can imagine how difficult it is,” Nadal said. “I need to put a stop to my sporting career for a while. I will try to regenerate my body during these months.”
Nadal added one of his goals for next year was to compete at the Paris Olympics, when the tennis tournament will be staged at Roland Garros.
“It’s an extra motivation to focus in my return,” he said. “I went through some very difficult years and I think it’s time to take better care of my body, I have suffered a lot with injuries… What will happen next year I don’t know.
“Roland Garros will always be Roland Garros with or without me … there will be a new champion and I’m sure the tournament will be a big success.”
Meanwhile, Nick Kyrgios won’t play in the French Open but a knee injury apparently isn’t to blame, as was previously reported.
Instead, his agent told Reuters that it’s a foot injury sustained during the course of a home-invasion robbery in Kyrgios’ native Australia that’s to blame.
Agent Daniel Horsfall said Kyrgios’ mother was held up at gunpoint on May 1, and during the “high-adrenaline rush of everything,” Kyrgios injured himself.
The player’s Tesla also was stolen. Police in Canberra, Australia, made an arrest in connection with the robbery after Kyrgios was able to track down his car using an app.
“With all the stuff that was going on, Nick lacerated the side of his left foot. We don’t know how,” Horsfall told Reuters, adding the injury probably cost the player about 2 1/2 weeks on the court.
The cut on Kyrgios’ foot is on the underside, near his small toe, which has made training tough.
“He couldn’t slide, couldn’t get on court because every time he put a shoe on it moved and it would re-open,” Horsfall said.
Kyrgios, 28, was hopeful of making his return at the Grand Slam event. He has yet to play in a tournament in 2023.
Kyrgios underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee four months ago with the initial timetable being that he would miss three to four weeks. Horsfall said the knee is in “fantastic” condition and that Kyrgios should be able to compete in grass-court tournaments.
The knee injury forced Kyrgios to miss the Australian Open.
Kyrgios, ranked 26th in the ATP rankings, has never won a Grand Slam title but reached the 2022 Wimbledon final, losing to Novak Djokovic in four sets.
He has won seven career singles crowns.
