PARIS: Maria Sharapova has pulled out of this year’s French Open with a shoulder injury, the two-time former Roland Garros winner announced on Wednesday. Sharapova, 32, a five-time Grand Slam champion, has not played since pulling out of a tournament in her native Russia at the end of January. “Sometimes the right decisions aren’t always the easiest ones,” she said in a post on her Instagram account. “In better news, I have returned to the practice court, and slowly building the strength back in my shoulder,” she added with a picture of her lifting the Roland Garros trophy in 2014. In February the world number 35 said she had undergone a small procedure to fix a long-standing shoulder problem. The former world number one had missed out on a place in the Australian Open quarter-finals in January. Sharapova has been struggling back to top fitness since watching from the sidelines during her 15-month doping ban that ended in 2017. This year’s French Open will run from May 26 until June 9, with Rafael Nadal and Simona Halep as defending champions.
Injured Sharapova withdraws from French Open
Published on: May 17, 2019 1:03 AM