By Martyn Herman
PARIS (Reuters) – The Olympic tennis competition suffered another blow as women’s third seed Elena Rybakina joined a lengthy list of non-starters hours after the draw took place at Roland Garros on Thursday.

The big-serving 25-year-old Kazakh was down to face Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian in the first round of the singles.

Rybakina’s withdrawal means that France’s Caroline Garcia moves into her spot in the draw as the 17th seed while Australia’s Daria Saville enters the draw as an alternate.

With the action to begin on Saturday, the flurry of high-profile withdrawals has cast something of a cloud over the tournament being staged on the famous Parisian clay.

On Wednesday, men’s world number one and top seed Jannik Sinner of Italy had to withdraw from the singles and doubles because of illness while exciting Danish youngster Holger Rune also pulled out on Wednesday with a wrist injury.

Czech player Marketa Vondrousova, who was runner-up in the singles in Tokyo three years ago, withdrew on Monday because of injury, as did Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz because of a knee injury sustained at Wimbledon.

Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, the champion in Tokyo, is also missing after giving birth to a daughter in April.

Two-time Olympic singles champion Andy Murray announced before Thursday’s draw that he was not fit enough to compete in the singles but would still play doubles with Dan Evans.

Other notable absences from the tennis at the Games include world number three Aryna Sabalenka, Tunsia’s Ons Jabeur, Britain’s Emma Raducanu, American Ben Shelton and Tokyo men’s bronze medal winner Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Davis)

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