CARSON, Calif. (Aug. 5, 2005) – Lindsay Davenport, currently ranked No. 1 in the world, and Serena Williams, ranked No. 4, have withdrawn from the JPMorgan Chase Open, Aug. 8-14, at The Home Depot Center on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson. Davenport withdrew due to a low back strain originally sustained at Wimbledon, while Williams is sidelined with a left ankle injury that has forced her withdrawal from her last two events.
Davenport was set to defend her title at the JPMorgan Chase Open as the tournament’s No.1 seed, but her back pain returned during play last week at Stanford and has not recovered.
“I am very disappointed that I have to withdraw from the JPMorgan Chase Open and will be unable to defend my title,” said Davenport. “I feel this is my hometown tournament and one in which I have always looked forward to playing. My back is just not ready yet for competition. I look forward to returning next year and trying to regain my title.”
Williams won back-to-back titles in Los Angeles in 1999 and 2000, and was the runner-up to Davenport last year.
Ai Sugiyama, Jie Zheng, Sania Mirza, Eleni Daniilidou, and Alina Jidkova will move into the main draw.
“We are certainly disappointed to lose players of the stature of our defending champion Lindsay Davenport and our other local favorite, Serena Williams, but we understand the need for each of them to focus on recovering from their recent injuries,” said Tournament Director Bill Peterson. “We are still fortunate that our fans will have the opportunity to come to this year’s JPMorgan Chase Open to watch great tennis being played by our outstanding field which still features so many of the tour’s most popular players, and has the added intrigue to see if Maria Sharapova can go far enough into the draw to become the world’s number one ranked player like Kim Clijsters was able to accomplish on our center court just two years ago.”
Top seeds for the JPMorgan Chase Open are Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova, Vera Zvonareva, Kim Clijsters, Mary Pierce and Elena Likhovtseva.