Nadal withdraws from Asian tournaments due to knee injury

Madrid: Spain tennis superstar Rafael Nadal, World No. 1, on Wednesday announced his withdrawal from his upcoming tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai due to a knee injury.

The same injury forced Nadal, 32, out of the US Open on September 7 during his semifinal match against Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina and also caused him to miss the Davis Cup semifinal over the weekend, in which Spain lost 3-0 to France.

"As you know, I had to retire from the US Open semifinal match, and last Monday I was in Barcelona looking at my knee's situation with the doctors," Nadal said via his official Twitter account.

"Although the discomfort in my knee is nothing new, we decided together with my medical and technical teams not to participate in the Asian tour so that the knee can recover in the way we want it to," he explained.

The 17-time Grand Slam champion apologized to his fans in China and to the tournaments' organisers.