Three-time champion Carolina Marin pulls out of BWF World Championships

The three-time champion shuttler Carolina Marin's return to court got further delayed after the Spaniard on Friday decided to pull out of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships which gets underway from Sunday in Huelva.

This decision came after the Rio Olympics gold medallist was unable to recover completely from a left knee injury sustained earlier in the year.

"Mentally it has been really hard to keep myself up," Marin said in a video posted on Twitter. "My priorities have always been health and wellbeing. Therefore my team and I have decided not to play the World Championships, and we have also taken the decision of not having a formal date of comeback to competition until we are 100 per cent sure that my knee is fully recovered. So we will be evaluating the progress of the knee and the sensation I'm having with it daily. We believe I might be officially playing again in February or March."

Marin had a great start to the year, winning two of three finals in successive weeks in January, capturing the Swiss Open in March and the European Championships in May, before hurting her left knee later that month during training. A torn ACL and damaged meniscus in the knee necessitated surgery, which ruled her out of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

"I had a really good season start, I won four tournaments out of five. I was feeling very confident, strong and in a really good physical and psychological condition until just one bad movement broke my knee completely," rued Marin.

Quite significantly, the World Championships are being held in her home city of Huelva, and in an arena named after her.

"See you next week in #Huelva2021, but not on court," signed off Marin in her statement.

( With inputs from ANI )

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