Top stars miss French Open

PARIS. — A week before the start of the French Open tennis tournament, the second Grand Slam of the year has been rocked by withdrawals.

Local French hero Jo-Wilfried Tsonga became the latest casualty after being forced to pull out due to injury.

He underwent surgery on his left knee last month and hasn’t played since retiring in the semi-finals of the ATP Marseille Open in February.

“I’m obviously very disappointed, but I still want to come to Lyon as an ambassador and to Roland Garros as a spectator,” Tsonga was quoted as saying on the Tennis X website.

Tsonga joins crowd favourite Roger Federer, who also ruled himself out of the tournament. There is also doubt about South Africa’s Kevin Anderson’s participation after he injured himself in the Italian Open this week. It is believed that it could be a thigh injury that made him quit during a last 16 match in Italy against Slovenian Aljaž Bedene. Anderson has reached a career high of number seven in the world.

This season has continued to be another successful one for the gangly South African after he won his inaugural title at the New York Open this year, and he reached two ATP finals in Pune and Acapulco.

His latest rise followed soon after he made history by reaching the Masters 1000 semi-final at the Madrid Open, where he was beaten by Austrian Dominic Thiem, who went on to lose the final.

Anderson has stayed within the top10 ranked players in the world since February. Hopefully, Spain’s Rafael Nadal’s spirit will not be dampened after losing his world number one spot to Federer at the beginning of the week.

In March, 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer announced after his Miami Open loss to Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis that he’d skip the clay season for the second year in a row. — AFP.