Muster pulls out of Wimbledon

Tennis

As far as Thomas Muster is concerned, injury was added to insult yesterday when a thigh strain caused him to withdraw from the Wimbledon championships, which start on Monday.

Muster, who accused the All England Club of disrespect in disregarding his ATP Tour world ranking of No 2 and demoted him to No 7 in the seedings, aggravated the injury when playing in the grass-court tournament in Halle, Germany.

The Austrian was leading New Zealand's Brett Steven, 6-4, 1-0, when he experienced pain in the left thigh. Steven went on to win, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1. "This injury brings the consequence that I will not be playing Wimbledon," Muster said. "In nine weeks I've had six days off, which is just not enough, so I'll have to leave Wimbledon out."

Muster, his left thigh strapped, limped badly through the last two sets against Steven. He continued to play despite being unable to run at full speed because of the injury, originally sustained at Queen's.

"I really didn't have time to recover," Muster said. "I had all possible therapy to get rid of it but all it did was ease the pain."

The Austrian had worked hard to prepare himself on grass for Wimbledon, and said his withdrawal was not related to the seeding controversy.

"One has nothing to do with the other," said Muster, who hopes to be back for the Mercedes Cup tournament in Stuttgart starting on 15 July.

On Tuesday, Muster played down suggestions that he might pull out in protest at his seeding. "It doesn't matter that I've never won a match at Wimbledon," he said. "I'm still No 2 in the world. I think to seed the No 2 player in the world No 7 is quite respectless."

His place in the draw is taken by Richard Krajicek, who becomes the No 17 seed. The big-serving Dutchman will play Spain's Javier Sanchez in the opening round, and could provide the opposition for Greg Rusedski if the Briton advances to the third round. Having said that, Krajicek has lost in the first round for the past two years.

Krajicek's original place is taken by Sweden's Anders Jarryd, a lucky loser from the qualifying competition. Jarryd, who lost to Boris Becker in the 1985 semi-finals, when the 17-year-old German went on to become the youngest, and only unseeded, men's singles champion, plays Britain's Chris Wilkinson.

n Play was washed out the Direct Line Insurance Championships at Eastbourne yesterday. The quarter- finals and semi-finals will be played today, starting at 11am.

QUARTER-FINAL LINE-UP: M Seles (US) v I Gorrochategui (Arg); L Raymond (US) v N Tauziat (Fr); Y Basuki (Indon) v J Novotna (Cz Rep); M J Fernandez (US) v C Martinez (Sp).