2 years ago
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Osaka won the past of her 4 Grand Slam titles astatine the 2021 Australian OpenTwo-time champion Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from this year's Australian Open conscionable 8 days earlier the commencement of the tournament.
Osaka, a victor successful Melbourne successful 2019 and 2021, has not played connected the WTA Tour since September and has slipped to 42 successful the satellite rankings.
No crushed was fixed for the 25-year-old Japanese player's withdrawal.
Organisers person promoted Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska to the main gully successful her place.
A fig of prima names, including 42-year-old seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams, and Spain's satellite fig 1 Carlos Alcaraz, 19, person already withdrawn from the tourney which begins connected 16 January successful Melbourne.
It remains to beryllium seen whether British fig 1 Emma Raducanu volition vie astatine the Australian Open aft she rolled her ankle astatine the ASB Classic connected Thursday and was forced to discontinue midway done a match.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka retired from her second-round lucifer arsenic she defended the Pan Pacific Open successful Tokyo successful September.
She had been beaten successful the archetypal circular of 3 tournaments including the US Open, anterior to the Tokyo event. She besides mislaid successful the archetypal circular of the French Open successful May and withdrew from Wimbledon successful June due to the fact that of an Achilles tendon injury, and reached the 3rd circular astatine past year's Australian Open.
In May 2021, Osaka pulled retired of the French Open aft revealing she had "suffered agelong bouts of depression" since winning her archetypal Grand Slam rubric successful 2018, and successful September of that twelvemonth she announced she would take a interruption from the sport.
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