Elena Rybakina, current WImbledon champion, has withdrawn from Roland Garros before playing her round of 32 match this Saturday due to illness, which has qualified the Spanish Sara Sorribes, number 132 in the ranking, without playing for the round of 16 .
“I wanted to give one hundred percent and obviously I’m very far away, if I can’t breathe I won’t be able to run and try to compete either,” said the Russian-born kajaza, seeded number 4 at the tournament in Paris.
The organization of Roland Garros had placed the duel between Rybakina and Sorribes in the opening round of the main track, the Philippe Chatrier, in a match that should have started at 11:45 a.m. but has not been played in the end.
Instead, Rybakina has offered a press conference to explain the reasons for her hasty withdrawal. With a voice far from her maximum expression, the Kazakh tennis player has revealed that she has been with a fever for a few days, almost unable to sleep and that she has had difficulty breathing when she has tried to jump on the track to train. As she has commented, the doctors have informed her that she may be a virus that “is around Paris these days.”
Rybakina’s withdrawal allows 26-year-old Sorribes Tormo to qualify for the round of 16 for the first time in his career. The tennis player from Castellón is completing a great performance in Paris after a bad past season, in which an injury took her away from the courts for six months.
