Reigning Olympic silver medalist Marketa Vondrousova announced on Monday that she has withdrawn from the upcoming Paris Games due to a hand injury.
The 2023 Wimbledon champion, who lost to Belinda Bencic in the gold medal match three years ago, made her announcement on Instagram. She had been expected to play singles as well as doubles with Karolina Muchova as a part of a Czech squad that also includes new Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, Linda Noskova and Katerina Siniakova.
The Olympic tennis competition at Roland Garros begins on Saturday.
"I was hoping until the last moment that I could go at least in doubles, but problems with my hand won't let me on the court," Vondrousova wrote in her statement.
The 25-year-old says that her focus will now shift to getting healthy for the year's final Grand Slam, the US Open, which begins next month.
A hip injury suffered in her match against Anna Kalinskaya at the ecotrans Ladies Open in Berlin disrupted the left-hander's preparations to defend her historic 2023 title at the All England Club, where she became the first unseeded woman in the Open Era to win the title. On her return this year, she was beaten in the first round by Spain's Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
Vondrousova was the second woman in the Open Era after Stefanie Graf in 1994 to lose in the first round of Wimbledon the year after winning the title, and as a result, dropped from World No.6 to No.18 in last week's post-Wimbledon PIF WTA Rankings.
The Czech's withdrawal means that two of the three Tokyo medalists will be on the sidelines for this year's Games. Bencic gave birth to her first child, daughter Bella, in April, and has been on maternity leave from the Hologic WTA Tour since the fall of last year. Bronze medalist Elina Svitolina, who over the weekend announced the end of her coaching relationship with Raemon Sluiter, is still in the field.
In Tokyo, the unseeded Vondrousova defeated three seeded players -- No.16 Kiki Bertens, No.2 Naomi Osaka, and No.4 Svitolina -- en route to the gold-medal match.
