Johannesburg [South Africa], December 23 (ANI): Japanese tennis player Kei Nishikori has withdrawn from the season-opening Brisbane International as he has still not recovered from a wrist injury.
The Japanese right-hander was ranked ninth in the world before sustaining the injury ahead of the Cincinnati Masters in August and has not been in action for more than four months, dropping to 22nd in the rankings.
Nishikori has been on rehabilitation since then and hoped to make a comeback in Brisbane, the warm-up tournament for the Australian Open, but the organisers have confirmed his withdrawal from the tournament which gets underway on December 31.
“I am so disappointed to miss Brisbane this year,” Sport24 quoted Nishikori who had been handed the fifth seed for the tournament, as saying.
He added, “For years it’s been my first tournament of the season and I always feel so at home there. I really look forward to coming back to Brisbane in the future”.
Nishikori has won 11 singles titles in his career and was runner-up at the 2014 US Open, making him the first male player representing an Asian country to reach a Grand Slam singles final.
He had attained the career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 in 2015.(ANI)
