‘Sad to Have to Withdraw’: In-Form Elena Rybakina Announces Frightening News Ahead of Australian Open 2022

World No. 13 Elena Rybakina has some bad news for her fans. The Kazakhstani tennis star was the finalist at the Adelaide Internation tournament, where she lost to Ashleigh Barty.

However, things looked promising for her as she moved to the Sydney Tennis Classic tournament. Rybakina defeated British star Emma Raducanu in straight sets. In fact, she only lost a single game in the entire match!

Now, Rybakina has had to withdraw from the warmup tournament owing to an injury in her left thigh.

Lack of recovery has caused problems for Elena Rybakina

The official Twitter page for the Australian Open has announced that Elena Rybakina would not be playing in the Sydney Tennis Classic tournament.

Obviously, the fatigue of two consecutive tournaments got to Rybakina. She even echoed this in her official statement about her withdrawal, citing “playing a lot of tennis” and “coming to Sydney and playing” as the reasons behind the same.

Thus, despite winning emphatically against Raducanu, one of the title favorites at the upcoming Australian Open, Elena’s body did not cope well with the grueling pressure.

“My body has not recovered well and my thigh is causing me problems,” Elena Rybakina stated officially. Furthermore, she expressed her sadness about having to pull out of the tournament.

“I wish everybody the best for the rest of the tournament,” Rybakina said as she expressed her sadness about her withdrawal.

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Rybakina thoroughly demolished Emma Raducanu

In what was Emma Raducanu‘s first tournament of the 2022 season, and the only warmup set of matches she would have gotten ahead of the Australian Open, Elena Rybakina dismantled her 6-0, 6-1 in their first round-of-32 match at the Sydney Classic Tournament.

After the match ended, Raducanu admitted that she was still finding her way around the tour. After all, the 19-year-old had tested positive for the coronavirus last month itself.

A 21-day break from tennis had translated to a lot of rust for her. She had even missed the Adelaide International tournament, a key warmup tournament that preceded the Sydney Classic as well as the Australian Open.

For Elena Rybakina, things looked promising as she thrashed one of the title favorites so resoundingly. However, she had to pull out of her round-of-16 match against French opponent Caroline Garcia.

Consequently, Garcia secured a walkover and will now proceed to the quarter-final round of the Sydney Tennis Classic. How deep do you think Elena Rybakina will go in her Australian Open run? Let us know in the comments.

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