Milos Raonic, Julien Benneteau withdraw from French Open
Paris, May 22 (IANS): World number six Milos Raonic and reigning French Open men's doubles champion Julien Benneteau announced on Thursday to pull out of this year's tournament, both due to injuries, a media report said on Friday.
Raonic has been forced to withdraw after failing to recover from a right foot surgery he had after being knocked out of the Madrid Open quarterfinals by the eventual champion Andy Murray two weeks ago, Xinhua reported.
The 24-year-old Canadian first suffered the injury at April's Monte Carlo Masters where he retired from his quarterfinal encounter against Tomas Berdych.
"I am sad to have to unfortunately withdraw from Roland Garros this year, I tried my best to be back and healthy in time after surgery," he wrote on his Twitter account.
"I will continue my rehab and proceed with preparations for a 100 percent strong Wimbledon and Queens run. Thank you for the love and support," added Raonic, whose best performance at Roland Garros came last year as a quarterfinalist who lost in straight sets to Novak Djokovic.
With Raonic's withdrawal, world number seven and nine-time champion Rafael Nadal will be promoted to the sixth seeding in Friday's draw.
Benneteau, last year's men's doubles winner along with his fellow Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin, will not be able to defend his men's doubles title due to an athletic pubalgia that has plagued him since March.
The French tennis federation announced Benneteau's withdrawal from both singles and doubles on Thursday and that his spot will be given to a lucky loser in the main draw, which gets underway on Sunday.