Anderson pulls out with injury, Ramkumar into third round

South African player Kevin Anderson said on Wednesday that the injury to his left knee which he had suffered two months ago, forced him to pull out of the singles competition at the Chennai Open. “I realised that my left knee is not back to normal when I trained here on Monday and again yesterday,” said Anderson at a press conference. Anderson was given a bye into the second round and was scheduled to play India’s wildcard Ramkumar Ramanathan. 

The South African’s pull out has sent Ramkumar ino the third round. Anderson said he had some problem with his knee two months ago and then he had trained hard in December. He thought he had recovered when he came here. “I have a tournament at Auckland next week. I will see if I get fit by then,” he said and added he was disappointed that he could not play in the season opener. Anderson’s pullout came a day after singles top seed Stan Wawrinka’s doubles campaign was abruptly ended following his partner Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain’s withdrawal from the competition due to a right calf injury. 

Wawrinka and Garcia Lopez were scheduled to play second seeds Leander Paes of India and Marcel Granollers of Spain in the first round but then the draw was reworked with alternates Daniel Taro of Japan and John Millman of Australia meeting Leander and Granollers, who cruised past their opponents easily on the stadium court. In fact, Garcia-Lopez’ problems started when he played the singles match against Daniel Taro in the singles on the outside court on Tuesday. 

After two games in the first set, the fifth seed Spaniard looked tired, limped somewhat and asked for the towel after every point to wipe his face. From a 0-2 deficit, the Spaniard came back from the brink in the third game to stay alive. He lost the set but to his credit he played remarkably well to win a close second set and then walked all over the Japanese in the decider to earn a second round meeting qualifier Ante Pavic of Croatia. 

Now it remains to be seen if the Spaniard will be able to complete his singles match. Anyway, as far as the doubles action is concerned, Wawrinka is out of the competition without even playing and now he could concentrate on his hat-trick campaign in singles. 

The injuries of both Anderson and Garcia Lopez brought to focus the kind of training top players need to undergo before big tournaments, especially when they start a season after a long gap.