Announcing his withdrawal last Friday<\/a>, three-time former champion Djokovic said: \u201cMadrid, unfortunately I won\u2019t be able to compete @MutuaMadridOpen this year. I\u2019m continuing my recovery in order to be back soon. Hasta pronto!\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cMadrid is home, one of the most special places on my calendar, and that’s why it hurts so much not to be able to play here for the second year in a row. It hurts especially not to be in front of my people, in a tournament that’s so special. Thank you for the unwavering affection, and I hope we see each other soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a very big pity to not have [Alcaraz] here, and also Novak, the two biggest stars in tennis, you know. So we still hope it’s going to be a good tournament, but of course, not seeing them, it makes a big difference,\u201d Sinner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s for sure a very tough thing for the tournament. Also, last year, [Alcaraz] didn’t play, so twice in a row, and also Novak not here, it’s tough to swallow for a tournament. It is always different when Carlos and Novak are not in a draw. It’s, I would say, very unique because we have shared since last year a lot of tournaments. But again, in my mind, I also know if I want to play against Carlos, it’s in the final, and the way to the final is very long, and then in the final, everything can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Madrid Open was rocked by yet another withdrawal, as Grand Slam champion Madison Keys withdrew minutes before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[18456,40616,189116,101,118,872,56,54,55,11572],"class_list":{"0":"post-549391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-madison-keys","9":"tag-madrid-open","10":"tag-madrid-open-withdrawals","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-tennis-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom","17":"tag-wta-tour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}