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The 21-year-old Japanese was scheduled to face sixth
seed Kiki Bertens after coming through two matches on Thursday in
the rain-affected tournament but said she was forced to withdraw due
to pain and swelling at the base of her thumb.
"I woke up this morning and couldn't really move my thumb," Osaka
told reporters. "I tried to practise and grip my racket but I
couldn't, and I kept feeling this pain when I tried to move my hand
in different directions.
"Right now I'm... in between sad and disappointed because I really
wanted to play my match today. For me, it was sort of a test to play
against Kiki because she's playing really well and I wanted to see
how well I could do today.
"I didn't feel anything yesterday. That's why I'm kind of confused
right now because I literally woke up in the morning and couldn't
move my thumb. So I was like, maybe I slept on it and maybe it will
go away, but it didn't."
An abdominal injury had forced Osaka to pull out ahead of her
semi-final clash in Stuttgart last month before she was beaten by
Belinda Bencic in the Madrid Open quarter-finals.
"I would describe (my clay season) as rocky," Osaka added.
"But I can't necessarily say it's been ups and downs because if I
think about it, it's definitely been going up. Every match I've
played I've learned a lot. I've tried to take what I've learned into
the next match and I think I've done that well."
Following her U.S. Open and Australian triumphs, Osaka is chasing a
third straight Grand Slam trophy at the French Open which begins on
May 26.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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