MONACO WITHDRAWS

David Nalbandian’s compatriot, Juan Monaco, has withdrawn his name from the Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament. The director of the tournament, Colin Stubbs, gave this information to the reporters on Tuesday. The reason of Monaco’s withdrawal from the tournament is hand injury. On Monaco’s place, Paul-Henri Mathieu of France will participate in the tournament.

Announcing the withdrawal of Monaco from the tournament, Stubbs said, “Juan’s manager called me in the morning and told me that Juan would not be able to take part in the tournament because his hand is injured.”

“He didn’t tell me how severe Juan’s injury is. He just told me that Juan had been advised by his physio to have a rest of few days and with Australian Open around the corner, he doesn’t want to take any risk. So, he has decided not to participate in the tournament.”

Monaco has been given 11^th seed in the Australian Open which is one higher than his world rankings. This is because world no. 4, Rafael Nadal, is not going to participate in the Australian Open.

Meanwhile, the Japan Open Champion Kei Nishikori has  said that he is not certain whether he would be able to take part in the Kooyong Classic tournament or not. Nishikori had injured his knee while playing in the Brisbane International tennis tournament and because of that, he had to withdraw from the semi final match.

Nishikori’s opening match at Kooyong is against Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic on Wednesday. When Nishikori was asked if he has recovered from his knee injury, he said, “I am not sure about it. I haven’t picked up the racket since the last few days. I will attend a training session tomorrow and if I will not have any difficulty while training, I will participate in the tournament. But, if I will feel the pain, I might withdraw from the tournament.”