BELGRADE: Twelve-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic will miss the rest of the season with an elbow injury, he announced on Wednesday.
The Serbian was forced to retire from his Wimbledon quarter-final against Tomas Berdych earlier this month because of the problem, and will now sit out of next month’s US Open.
In a live Facebook video post from Belgrade, the former world number one said that after suffering from the injury for a year-and-a-half, “I have made a decision to not play any competition, any tournaments” for the rest of 2017.
“Unfortunately this is the decision that had to be made at this moment. Wimbledon was probably the toughest tournament for me in terms of feeling the pain that has escalated,” he said.
Between mid-January 2015 and June 2016, Djokovic won 17 of his 22 finals played in 24 tournaments. It seemed nothing could interrupt his dominance of world tennis.
But since winning the French Open last year to complete his Career Grand Slam, he has failed to claim another major title.
He crashed out of the Australian Open in the second round and the French Open in the quarter-finals.
