MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS, Andrey Kartashov/. Russian tennis player Daria Kasatkina announced to TASS on Tuesday her decision to withdraw from the national Olympic team ahead of the Tokyo Games citing health issues.
"The most important for me at the moment is to maintain my physical condition as well as my mental shape," Kasatkina, who is currently rated as World No. 35 in the Women Tennis Association (WTA), said in an interview with TASS. "We have a very busy calendar this year with an extremely packed ending for this season."
"The flight to Japan will be very difficult and the current situation regarding the novel coronavirus pandemic only makes it more complicated," the 24-year-old player continued. "I don’t want to see another injury forcing me to lose my physical shape as well as my future confidence."
"This was a decision made by me jointly with my team," Kasatkina added.
Early last month, Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the Russian Tennis Federation (RTF), announced that the national tennis team would be represented at the Olympics in Tokyo in women’s singles completion by Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Veronika Kudermetova, and Yekaterina Alexandrova
A total of 64 players, each in the men and women’s competitions, were allowed to take part in the Olympic Games in Japan this summer. Fifty-six tennis players will be selected based on the ATP (the Association of Tennis Professionals) and WTA (the Women Tennis Association) ranking lists, while the International Tennis Federation (ITF) was set to issue eight more invitations for players in each category.
The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Japan’s capital of Tokyo will be held this year between July 23 and August 8. In March 2020, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to postpone for one year the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Japan due to the COVID-19 spread.
As of today, Japan is ranked 34th globally in terms of reported COVID-19 cases, which currently stand at over 807,950. A total of over 14,860 people have died of the novel coronavirus infection there, while more than 776,646 have recovered from the illness.
Russian athletes will be competing in Tokyo under the flag and logo of the Russian National Olympic Committee (ROC) instead of the Russian national flag and state emblem. The national anthem of Russia is also under sanctions at the Olympics in Japan.