World No 1 Novak Djokovic won’t defend his Madrid Open title as he has confirmed he “won’t be able to travel to Madrid this year”.
The 18-time Grand Slam winner confirmed via the tournament’s Twitter account that he will not feature at the ATP Masters 1000 event.
“Sorry that I won’t be able to travel to Madrid this year and meet all my fans,” he said.
“It’s been two years already, quite a long time. Hope to see you all next year!”
Novak Djokovic will not be playing in the Mutua Madrid Open.
“Sorry that I won’t be able to travel to Madrid this year and meet all my fans”, said @DjokerNole. “It’s been two years already, quite a long time. Hope to see you all next year!”.
Djokovic, a three-time winner of the Spanish clay-court tournament, has played only four tournaments so far this campaign – the ATP Cup, Australian Open, Monte-Carlo Masters and Serbia Open.
His final outing was a three-set defeat against Aslan Karatsev in the semi-final in Belgrade on Saturday.
The 33-year-old, though, is expected to defend his Italian Open, which starts on May 10, title while he is also set to feature in the second event in Serbia, the Belgrade Open, from May 22-29.
World No 2 Rafael Nadal will replace Djokovic as the top seed at the Madrid Open, which starts on May 2.