MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya has decided to withdraw from the 2024 Miami Open tennis tournament in the United States citing health problems.

Kalinskaya, 22nd-seeded at the tournament, was scheduled to play in the fourth-round match of the competition in Miami against No.8 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece. Sakkari is now through to the quarterfinals of the tournament after the Russian player decided to retire.

"I'm so sorry, I was really looking forward to playing today," the official website of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) quoted Kalinskaya as saying in a statement. "But unfortunately, my health doesn’t allow me. Thank you for your support."

The WTA official website reported that Kalinskaya was forced to withdraw from the tournament ahead of the match with Sakkari "due to a right thigh injury."

Kalinskaya, 25, is ranked 25th in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Rankings and has zero WTA titles in her career. This year, she reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, her best finish at any Grand Slam in her career.

The 2024 Miami Open tennis tournament is classified as an ATP Masters 1000 event and a WTA (the Women Tennis Association) 1000 event. It is played on hard courts at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, between March 19 and 31 and offers some $9 million and $8.8 million in ATP and WTA competitions correspondingly.

Russia’s top tennis player Daniil Medvedev is the tournament's reigning champion in men’s singles and Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic won last year's women's crown.

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also canceling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.