• Tennis

Injured Maria Sharapova withdraws from US Open

ESPN staff
August 22, 2013
Maria Sharapova's season continues to falter © AP
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In the end all the debate about Maria Sharapova's publicity-grabbing gimmick of changing her name for the US Open proved irrelevant as she pulled out of the tournament because of an injury to her right shoulder.

Sharapova has played only one match on tour since her second-round loss at Wimbledon in June - a first-round defeat in Cincinnati last week - and she also made headlines after hiring Jimmy Connors as her new coach and then firing him almost immediately, after her most recent loss.

She last missed the US Open, a tournament she won in 2006, in 2008 when she was off the tour for about 10 months because of surgery on her right shoulder. She won her first major title since that operation at last year's French Open, completing a career grand slam.

"Maria Sharapova is one of the great warriors of the tennis world," gushed US Tennis Association executive director Gordon Smith. "If she withdrew, there's a serious issue."

Sharapova originally was seeded third at the US Open and Agnieszka Radwanksa will now move from No. 4 to No. 3, and all other seeded players below her will also move up a spot with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova becoming the No. 32 seed.

A few hours earlier Mardy Fish also withdrew from the US Open, citing personal reasons.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd
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