Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from Wimbledon 2022, the tennis player appears to confirm on Saturday, after BBC reported the news.
This will be the third year in a row that the Japanese player will miss Wimbledon. The tournament was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then she skipped the 2021 championships to spend time with the family before the Tokyo Olympics.
The 24-year-old has not played since the French Open in which she lost the first round, as she continues to recover from an Achilles tendon injury. Osaka recently posted a video of her running on an underwater treadmill to show how far she has come. This injury reportedly caused her to withdraw from the basal court major as well.
At the time of her French Open exit, Osaka made it clear that she was considering not playing Wimbledon due to the fact that the ATP and WTA stripped the tournament of any rating points. This decision came after Wimbledon decided to ban Russian and Belarusian players from competing due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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Osaka ended up calling Wimbledon “like a fair” at that point because no rating points would be rewarded on how the player finished. This comment offended players like two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray. The British tennis player argued that playing Wimbledon was worth it regardless of the standings due to the historical aspect of the tournament.
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