the tournament announced on Saturday<\/a>. Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska will move to the main draw in her place.<\/p>\nNo reason was given for the withdrawal.<\/p>\n
This is the third high-profile withdrawal from Melbourne Park in the span of two days, as Carlos Alcaraz announced he would miss the tournament with a leg injury and Venus Williams pulled out with an unspecified injury.<\/p>\n
The tournament is scheduled to begin on Jan. 15, with qualifiers starting Sunday.<\/p>\n
Naomi Osaka’s career takes another hit<\/h2>\n
Osaka, who won the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021, hasn’t played a WTA event since withdrawing from the 2022 Toray Pan Pacific Open in September due to abdominal pain. She has won two full-length matches total since losing to Iga Swiatek in the finals of the 2022 Miami Open in April, a span of time that includes the French Open, Wimbledon (from which she also withdrew) and the US Open.<\/p>\n
Osaka’s WTA ranking currently sits at No. 42 in women’s singles, down from No. 13 this time last year and No. 3 in January 2021. Once the top player in tennis, her career has taken a hard turn amid concerns with her consistency, injury and mental health.<\/p>\n
Despite those struggles, Osaka remains among the top-earning athletes in not just tennis, but the entire sports industry thanks to a business portfolio that includes a stake in the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage, a skincare line, a media company partnered with LeBron James and her own sports agency, which just signed world No. 2 Ounces of Jabeur. She’s also a defendant in a class-action lawsuit over her stake in the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange.<\/p>\n
Forbes named her the world’s highest-paid female athlete last year with an estimated $59.2 million in 2022 income.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n