Dominic Thiem withdraws from Indian Wells as Osaka makes her return
Dominic Thiem, the 2020 US Open champion has joined the list of absentees at the Indian Wells and Miami Open. He opts out of the two events to prepare and make his much-awaited return during the European clay-court season.
Dominic suffered an injury in 2021 while at the grass-court event in Mallorca and made an attempted return at Cordoba in February 2022 but had to abort it due to a finger issue.
He joins notable stars Roger Federer, Ashleigh Barty, Kei Nishikori and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova who are all set to miss as well as Novak Djokovic who will miss because he is unvaccinated against Covid.
Indian Wells has begun yesterday and will last till March 20, 2022. The main draw play will kick-start on March 9.
Paula Badosa beat Victoria Azarenka to win the Women’s Singles in 2021 while the Men’s Singles went to Cameroon Norrie who defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili.
Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka has made her much-awaited return to the event since 2019 and the 2018 champion who is now ranked No 78 will have to fight her way back to the top, having made the semi-finals of set one in Melbourne, Australia.
