Former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has pulled out of the Australian Open just an hour before she was due to take to the court for her first-round match. The No.32 seed was set to face Hailey Baptiste on Court 13 at 2pm in Melbourne (3am UK) but tournament organisers announced her decision to withdraw at 1pm local time.
The Czech star, whose career has been marred by injuries, has been replaced by lucky loser Taylor Townsend. In a statement, Vondrousova explained that she faced a setback with her shoulder.
“I’m really sorry that I had to withdraw from the Australian Open due to ongoing shoulder issues. After everything I’ve been dealing with, I need to prioritise my health, even though this decision wasn’t easy. Thank you all for your understanding and support,” she said.
Vondrousova also missed last year’s Australian Open after picking up an injury in Adelaide a week earlier. The 2025 Adelaide International was her first tournament in more than six months after ending the 2024 season to undergo shoulder surgery.
She took a break in February and returned to action a few months later at the French Open, and her comeback quickly gained momentum. Vondrousova won the WTA 500 in Berlin and then reached the US Open quarter-finals.
But she faced another setback at the beginning of this season. After losing in the first round of the Brisbane International, Vondrousova withdrew from the WTA event in Adelaide, citing shoulder pain. And the same issue has now sidelined her in Melbourne.
The former world No. 6 has struggled physically throughout her career. Vondrousova finished runner-up at the 2019 French Open when she was still a teenager – but picked up a wrist injury at Wimbledon a few weeks later and ended her season to have surgery.
She returned to competition in 2021 and won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games, but the wrist problems came back to haunt her, and in 2022 she had another operation. Vondrousova again bounced back from her extended injury layoff, becoming the first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon in 2023.
But her injury woes have persisted, and this time it’s the shoulder which has forced Vondrousova out of the Australian Open for the second year running.