Victoria Azarenka is not going to participate in the upcoming French Open due to her foot injury.
This is the 5th tournament from which Azarenka has withdrawn in the recent past. She was actually believed to recover completely before the start of the Roland Garros event, but, unfortunately for her, the recovery hasn’t been fast enough.
In the last 2 months, Azarenka has taken part in only one game. That was against Lauren Davis of USA in the BNP Paribas Open. She got defeated there and she has been out since then.
Azarenka had started having some trouble in her foot during the course of the Australian Open earlier this year. She had to defend her crown there which she couldn’t eventually as she was beaten by the Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska in the round of 8.
Azarenka announced her withdrawal from the French Open on her Twitter page. She wrote, “I am gutted to inform you all that I am going to be out of this year’s French Open.”
“I am desperate to be back on the court, have been putting in a lot of effort on recovery.”
Being out for so long has affected Azarenka’s world ranking. She is on the verge of going out of top 5 now. But, that shouldn’t be a concern for her. The kind of player she is, once she returns, it would not take her that long to improve her ranking again.
As far as Azarenka’s performance in the French Open is concerned, it has not been consistent. Last year, she had done well as she had made it to the round of 4. But, in the years prior to that, she had been getting knocked out early. She would have liked to put up a memorable performance at Roland Garros this year, but, injury wouldn’t allow her to do so now.