Reuters: Sports News: Nadal to miss Australian Open due to illness

Reuters: Sports News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Nadal to miss Australian Open due to illness Dec 28th 2012, 16:52 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Nadal pulls out of Abu Dhabi tournament due to illness Tue, Dec 25 2012 Nadal does not expect to be fully fit before March Sun, Dec 23 2012 Nadal to return in Abu Dhabi this month Tue, Dec 11 2012 Nadal eyes clay season for return to top form Mon, Dec 3 2012 Analysis & Opinion Greg Rusedski blog: London tennis was best in Olympic history Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal poses after an interview with Reuters in Madrid, September 18, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Paul Hanna MADRID | Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:33am EST MADRID (Reuters) - French Open champion Rafa Nadal has been forced to withdraw from next month's Australian Open because of a stomach virus that has disrupted his recovery from a knee injury, the world number four said on Friday. "My knee is much better and the rehabilitation process has gone well as predicted by the doctors, but this virus didn't allow me to practice this past week," the Spaniard, who has also pulled out of the Qatar Open in Doha, said in a statement. "Therefore I am sorry to announce that I will not play in Doha and the Australian Open, as we had initially scheduled." Nadal was due to make his competitive comeback after the knee injury sidelined him for six months at an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi this week. The 26-year-old has not played since June when he suffered a shock defeat in the second round of Wimbledon to Czech Lukas Rosol. He had won the exhibition event in the United Arab Emirates in 2010 and 2011. Nadal said doctors had advised a period of rest without any sport for the next seven days starting on Friday. "As my team and doctors say, the safest thing to do is to do things well and this virus has delayed my plans of playing these weeks," he said. "I will have to wait until the Acapulco tournament (at the end of February) to compete again although I could consider to play before at any other ATP event. "I always said that my return to competition will be when I am in the right conditions to play and after all this time away from the courts I rather not accelerate the comeback and prefer to do things well." (Reporting by Iain Rogers; Editing by John Mehaffey) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions