World No. 10 Kevin Anderson of South Africa, who is the second seed at the 2016 Aircel Chennai Open, has withdrawn from the tournament citing an injury to his left knee.
Anderson held a press conference to announce the same, mentioning that it had been a problem that had been there for a while now which had come up again.
"It's something that I've had for a lot of years. I was training very hard in December and also had an extensive travel, so could be the result of the pressure on the knee", said Anderson.
"Obviously disappointed to not be competing here, not just here in Chennai, but also the first tournament of the year for me. But me and my medical team took the decision keeping in mind the schedule", added the South African.
Anderson is scheduled to play in Auckland next week and said that his first match there would only be on Tuesday or Wednesday, giving him time to rest the knee a bit and take a call on playing there.
The second seed was to take on local player Ramkumar Ramanathan in the second time round tomorrow.
Russia’s Alex Kudryatsev will replace Anderson in the draw and will take on Ramanathan in tomorrow’s draw.
Corrigendum: A previous version of this article stated Ramkumar Ramanathan would progress to the quarter-finals via walkover. The error has since been rectified.
