Kim Clijsters declined the invitation reserved for him for the Australian Open tennis tournament, the first Grand Slam round of the year which is due to start on February 8, according to information from several specialist media picked up by several Belgian media on Monday.
On reading the invitations granted by the WTA on Sunday, the name of the Australian Arina Rodionova, 169th in the world, takes place in place of the Limbourgeoise. His management could not be contacted to confirm the information Monday morning.
Kim Clijsters, 37, made his return to the circuit coming out of retirement (since 2012) for the third time last year. Ranked 1,030th in the WTA rankings, the former world number 1 can benefit from invitations to the circuit on the basis of her Grand Slam victories (4). She won the Australian Open in 2011.
Kim Clijsters has only played three tournaments and three matches this year, beaten each time in the first round.
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The Australian Open was originally scheduled to start on January 18, but tennis organizers and governing bodies have had to postpone tournament dates at the request of Australian authorities to put in place unprecedented health measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Covid-19.
Players will need to arrive in Australia from January 15 to observe a two-week quarantine period in a “sanitary bubble“secure set-up around Melbourne Park, the tournament site.
They must therefore stay in hotels reserved for them and must not stay outside these establishments for more than five hours a day for their training.
Qualifications for this first major tournament of the year will take place for men in Doha and for women in Dubai from January 10 to 13.
