Sharapova withdraws from French Open

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.