Abu Dhabi: After pulling out of the Mubadala Tennis Championships, former world No. 1 Novak Djokovic also withdrew from Qatar Open starting next week.
The elbow injury has thus put a serious mark about the Serbian’s return in the Australian Open.
“Unfortunately, the situation with the elbow has not changed for the better since yesterday,” said the 12-time Grand Slam champion in a statement.
Djokovic was looking to defend his Doha title which he won beating Briton Andy Murray last year.
“I still feel the pain. Therefore, I will have to withdraw from (the) ATP tournament in Doha. Only when I’m 100 per cent ready to play, I will be able to come back. I hope it will be soon. I want to thank everyone for their patience and understanding,” said Djokovic, who was targeting Doha as his first match since his quarter-finals loss at Wimbledon in July this year.
However, Djokovic’s pain proved to be Austrian Dominic Thiem’s gain as the world No. 5 has now been made top seed of Qatar Open.
Thiem enters the tournament at the back of some useful practice despite crashing out from the semi-finals at the Mubadala Tennis Championships.
With Djokovic’s last-minute withdrawal, Mubadala organisers had to scramble again to find a competitor for the third-place match on the final day on Saturday. This year’s event has already been plagued by Rafael Nadal and Stan Wawrinka withdrawing from the original line-up.
Thiem, who lost out to South Africa’s Kevin Anderson in straight games 7-6, 6-4, found world No. 10 Pablo Carreno Busta for another battle ahead of the new season. Busta had lost the fifth place match to Russian Andrev Rublev in straight games 6-4, 6-2 on Friday but agreed for another contest. However, the Spaniard failed to make any impact or show the class of 2017 that saw him leapfrog from No. 30 to top 10.
Thiem beat Busta in straight games 6-3, 6-4 and piled on more agony on the latter. This was his 11th loss in last 12 matches since struggling with an abdominal injury.
“Of course, I am happy but first of all it was good to get one more match against a top-10 player. I’m happy that I got to play today and even more happy that I won. The start at the beginning of the season will boost my confidence,” said Thiem, adding that he thoroughly enjoyed participating at the Mubadala Championships.
“The surface was perfect and will be exactly the same way how the next tournament (Qatar Open) will be for me will be next year. I think I’m ready.”
