Milos Raonic has been laid low by fitness problems again as he is set to miss the Madrid and Rome Masters in May.
The Canadian world number 16 suffered an issue with his knee and that is said to be the cause of his withdrawal from the twin-Masters tournaments on clay in the lead-up to the second Grand Slam tournament at Roland-Garros.
Tennis Canada tweeted about Raonic’s absence from these two tournaments. They said:
“Unfortunately Canadian No. 1 Milos Raonic has had to pull out of the Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. Wishing @milosraonic a speedy recovery!”
What this means is Raonic will be fighting time to get into full fitness for the French Open that begins in the last week of May. He was absent from the previous year’s French Open as well, thanks to a knee issue too.
Even if Raonic does get fit in time for the French Open, his match-fitness and practice on clay will be a question-mark given he has played a total of just five matches on this surface since the end of the 2017 clay-court season.
Raonic has also been out of action since the Miami Masters towards the end of March, which means he would have been without any competitive tennis for two months in the lead-up to Roland-Garros.
The Canadian has had a good season so far, having made it to the quarter-finals at the Australian Open where he defeated Nick Kyrgios, Stan Wawrinka and Alexander Zverev. He was also a semi-finalist at the Indian Wells Masters, losing to the eventual champion Dominic Thiem before falling in round three at Miami.
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