Chennai Open regular Tipsarevic withdraws from tournament due to illness

Chennai Open 2013 singles champion Janko Tipsarevic has been forced to withdraw from the tournament due to illness. The former World No. 8, fast recovering and practicing after surgery, was all set to make a return to competitive tennis in the new season and was granted a singles wild card.

He will be replaced by Sweden’s Elias Ymer — debuting as a wild card entry in the 20th edition.

30-year-old Tipsarevic, a regular at the Chennai Open and one of the tournament’s favorites, will be match fit only in February next year. The Serbuan had a dream start to 2013 when he captured the fourth ATP World Tour title of his career, defeating Bautista Agut (Spain) in three sets 3–6, 6–1, 6–3 in Chennai. The 2015 edition was to be the Serb’s seventh visit to Chennai. 18 year-old Ymer is a Swedish tennis player of Ethiopian descent and attained his career high ranking of World No. 225 this month. Ymer made his ATP main draw singles debut at the 2013 Swedish Open where he lost in the first round to Grigor Dimitrov. Ymer was given a wildcard at the 2014 Swedish Open defeating Mikhail Kukushkin in the first round before falling to João Sousa in the second round. He has won five ITF Futures Singles titles in 2014. The 2015 edition of the tournament will take place from January 5th to 11th next year and will mark twenty years since the very first game of India’s premier and South Asia’s only ATP World Tour event was played. Stan Wawrinka, World No. 14 Feliciano Lopez, World No. 15 Roberto Bautista Agut and World No. 22 David Goffin will all participate. Other leading players who will add excitement to the event include Spaniards Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Marcel Granollers, Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, Chinese Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu and 2014 finalist Edouard Roger-Vasselin.