Hyeon Chung withdrew from the French Open on Tuesday, citing a right-ankle injury that has plagued him off and on since his early-season run to the Australian Open semifinals.
“Unfortunately I had to withdraw from Lyon yesterday and now Roland Garros,” Chung posted on Twitter. “I have been struggling with an ankle injury during the entire clay season. An MRI scan has revealed that I have build up of fluid in the ankle joint which might require a small procedure and then an extended period of rest.”
The 22-year-old Korean, who is up to 20th in the rankings, advanced to consecutive quarterfinals in Delray Beach, Acapulco, Indian Wells, and Miami before kicking off his clay-court campaign with a semifinal showing in Munich. But he did not play in either Monte-Carlo or Rome and lost his Madrid opener 6-2, 6-0 to Robin Haase.
Chung joins Roger Federer and Milos Raonic as Roland Garros absentees who would have been seeded. Feliciano Lopez and Gilles Muller had already moved into seeded spots, while Fernando Verdasco now gets a seed thanks to Chung’s withdrawal.
This development also moves Denis Shapovalov from the No. 25 seed (the 25-32 group) to the No. 24 position (17-24 group). That means the 19-year-old Canadian will avoid the 1-8 seeds (Rafael Nadal, Alexander Zverev, and Dominic Thiem among them) until at least the fourth round.
Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Steve Darcis, and Cedrik-Marcel Stebe are the other players with direct entry who have already pulled out of the season’s second major.
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good for Shapo
Tsonga is out of RG too?! That’s a bummer man…