Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal and many other players have withdrawn from next week’s Toronto Master 1000 to focus on the Olympics.
The 2016 Atp calendar was changed because of the Olympics, and Toronto, which is usually played before Cincinnati in August, was moved two weeks before in July. So, instead of taking place in the week following Rio, it will be played a week before the Olympics, from the 25th to the 31st of July.
One of the first players pulling out was the three-time former champion and Wimbledon victor Andy Murray, who is taking a week of training before Rio.
“I always look forward to coming to Canada and it’s the first time I’ve missed the tournament, the guys there do a great job and always look after the players,” said Murray. “My body needs some recovery time after reaching the latter stages of tournaments over the past few months. I’m sorry to my fans in Toronto but I look forward to being back in Canada next year.”
Then, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal withdrew as well.
“I have made the tough decision to withdraw from Rogers Cup,” said Federer. “Toronto is one of my favourite events on the calendar and I am disappointed that I won’t be able to compete in front of the great tennis fans in Canada. Looking ahead, it is best for me that I take more time after Wimbledon. I look forward to coming back to Canada next year and I wish Karl Hale and everyone at Tennis Canada a very successful tournament.”
Instead, Nadal cited his wrist injury in the withdrawal. “I am disappointed to announce I won’t be able to come to Toronto to play this year.” he said. ” I only started practicing a week ago after my wrist injury and I am not ready to play such an important event. I am very much looking forward to playing in Toronto in a couple of years since I have always been treated great in that tournament and have a lot of great Canadian fans.”
But Murray,Federer and Nadal are only few players in the huge list of withdrawals from Toronto. Others were Richard Gasquet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, David Ferrer, Roberto Bautista-Agut, Gilles Simon, Andreas Seppi and Philipp Kohlschreiber. Also, twelve of the first thirty alternates pulled out from the entry list. The cutoff, which was originally 43, dropped to 76, with still eight hours of time for the players to withdraw. Then, the doubles tournament lost the first seed as Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert decided not to play.
Some of the players who joined the Toronto main draw acceptance list in the last days are Croatian Borna Coric, Latvian Ernests Gulbis, Americans Taylor Fritz and Rajeev Ram, Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Croatian Ivan Dodig. Meanwhile, main draw wild cards were awarded to Canadians Frank Dancevic, Steven Diez, Peter Polansky and Denis Shapovalov.
