French Open 2016: Rafael Nadal forced to withdraw from tournament due to wrist injury

Nine-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal has been forced to withdraw from this season's tournament with a wrist injury. The 29-year-old Spaniard had progressed to the third round at Roland Garros with a straight-sets win over Facundo Bagnis.

But Nadal has confirmed he will be taking no further part in the event because of the injury. Indeed, he revealed he had only gotten through the match against Bagnis thanks to an injection.

"Yesterday I played with an injection," he explained during a press conference on Friday (27 May), according to the BBC. "Yesterday evening I started to feel more and more pain and today I felt I could not move my wrist."

Nadal said he would not even have tried to compete at any other tournament with the injury. However, he considers the French Open to be "the most important event of the year".

Although he has been plagued by injuries in recent years, Nadal was among the favourites to lift the title at Roland Garros. The popular left-hander registered his 200th Grand Slam victory with a crushing 6-3 6-0 6-3 win over Bagnis and appeared on course to win another French Open crown. This season he had titles on clay at Monte Carlo and Barcelona and reached the semi-final in Madrid, where he was beaten by Andy Murray.

On whether he'll be ready for Wimbledon Nadal said: "We're going work hard to be ready for Wimbledon. For the moment I need a couple of weeks with the immobilization. Then we're going to do the treatment, and we hope the treatment works well. We expect to recover quickly, to be ready for Wimbledon. But at this moment it's not a moment to talk about that. It's just a moment to go day by day, to work hard. I hope to have a fast recovery."