Injury Forces Withdraw For Gael Monfils At SAP Open 2011

Written by: Staff on 12th February 2011

Injury Forces Withdraw For Gael Monfils At SAP Open 2011

Gael Monfils (FRA) |

2011 SAP Open #2 seed Gael Monfils (FRA) has withdrawn from the 2011 SAP Open tennis tournament due to inflammation in his left wrist. Monfils, who earned a spot in the tournament semifinals earlier in the day with a 6-4, 7-6 (6) victory over American Tim Smyczek, has also withdrawn from ATP World Tour events in Memphis, Tenn. and Acapulco, Mexico and will miss upcoming Davis cup play to rest the injury.

“Since the Australian Open I’ve had this pain,” said Monfils. “We decided to stop for between four and six weeks.”

By virtue of the Monfils withdrawal, wildcard entrant Milos Raonic (CAN) has earned a “walkover” into the 2011 SAP Open Singles Final on Sunday, February 13 at 5 p.m. and will play the winner of the Fernando Verdasco vs. Juan Martin del Potro semifinal to be played on Saturday, February 12 at 7 p.m.

In place of the 1 p.m. semifinal, Raonic will play a best-of-three set, no-ad scoring (with match Tiebreak in lieu of 3^rd set) singles exhibition match – “Battle of the Baltics” – against Croatia’s 6’ 10” Ivo Karlovic at 1 p.m. (PST) on Saturday. Following this singles exhibition match, both players will participate in a “Fast Serve Contest” to determine the SAP Open’s fastest server.

After the serving contest, the regularly scheduled doubles semifinal between Santiago Gonzalez (MEX) / Philipp Marx (GER) vs. Scott Lipsky (USA) / Rajeev Ram (USA) will be played – not before 2 p.m. (PST).

The evening session, starting at 7 p.m. will feature Fernando Verdasco (ESP vs. Juan Martin del Potro (ARG), followed by the second doubles semifinal between Alejandro Falla (COL) / Xavier Malisse (BEL) vs. #1 seed Mark Knowles (BAH) / Michal Mertinak (SVK).

Topics: Gael Monfils