Nick Kyrgios, the runner-up last year at Wimbledon, withdrew from the tournament on Sunday evening. Florian Eisele/Pool Photo via AP
WIMBLEDON, England — Nick Kyrgios pulled out of Wimbledon the night before the tournament’s start, citing a wrist injury, a year after he reached his first Grand Slam final at the All England Club.
His withdrawal was announced by Wimbledon on Sunday night.
Kyrgios was seeded 30th in the men’s bracket and was scheduled to face David Goffin on Monday.
Kyrgios will be replaced in the field by a player who lost during qualifying.
“I’m really sad to say that I have to withdraw from Wimbledon this year. During my comeback, I experienced some pain in my wrist during Mallorca. As a precaution I had it scanned and it came back showing a torn ligament in my wrist,” Kyrgios posted on social media. “I tried everything to be able to play and I am disappointed to say that I just didn’t have enough time to manage it before Wimbledon.”
He has played just one match all season, after beginning 2023 by pulling out of the Australian Open because of a knee injury that required surgery.
The 28-year-old Australian also missed the French Open.
Hours before his withdrawal on Sunday, Kyrgios was asked at a pre-tournament news conference how his body was holding up and whether he was ready for best-of-five-set competition at a major tournament.
“I still think there’s some question marks, for sure,” he replied.
“I look at my preparations last year coming in, I probably had the most ideal preparation possible,” Kyrgios said. “It couldn’t be any different this year.”
MATTEO BERRETTINI is ignoring social media for the time being. Not simply, mind you, to avoid negative comments from strangers – or not just for that reason, anyway – but to stay away from positive messages, too.
Let’s let the player who was a finalist at Wimbledon in 2021 explain:
“People believe in me, which is beautiful, but I also got to a point where I realized that nine out of 10 people who ask me something, the next phrase they write is, ‘This year, you’ll win Wimbledon,’ ” Berrettini said Sunday. “And so I need to protect myself from that sort of thing, too.”
Even thoughts from other people that are meant to be supportive can get in his head and create problems, in part by raising the pressure with regard to what sort of result he is “supposed” to achieve.
“I consider myself pretty mature,” said Berrettini, a 27-year-old from Italy who has been ranked as high as No. 6 and is outside the top 35 now, “but it’s not easy to handle it all.”
Particularly during a season when hand surgery and an abdominal muscle problem have limited him to 14 matches.
“I need to try to focus on the things that brought me to where I got, such as hard work, keeping my head down, doing what I like to do – fight, and believe in my team and my family,” Berrettini said. “So that’s what I’m doing.”
He missed Wimbledon a year ago after testing positive for COVID-19 and faces Lorenzo Sonego – a countryman and his best friend on tour – in the first round on Tuesday.
A YEAR AGO at Wimbledon, everything was new to Elena Rybakina.
She had been past the fourth round only once – and never past the quarterfinals – in 11 previous Grand Slam appearances. She was not among the leading seeds or among the favorites.
And now? Now she returns to the All England Club as the defending champion. Plus, she showed that was no fluke by reaching the final at the Australian Open in January.
“I know what to expect, how it works, if you actually go that far in the tournament,” Rybakina said Sunday. “Psychologically I would say that it’s a bit easier than when you don’t know what to expect.”
She is seeded No. 3 in the women’s bracket and will play Shelby Rogers of the United States in the first round on Tuesday.
Rybakina pulled out of the French Open before her third-round match last month because of a viral illness, then cited that reason again when she withdrew from a grass-court tournament in England last week.
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