The elbow injury that forced Frenchman Richard Gasquet to retire from today's Hypo Group International match with Jurgen Melzer will not prevent him from playing Roland Garros, his coach said today. The clay-court Grand Slam begins on Sunday.

Source:Tennisweek.com

Gasquet was forced to pull the plug on his final four events of the 2005 season due to right elbow pain. The 43rd-ranked Frenchman was trailing Melzer, 0-6, 1-1, in today's second-round match of the Poertschach clay-court event when he retired with elbow pain.

"I do not think it is serious," Gasquet's coach, Erick Deblicker, told Reuters today. "It's a little pain in the elbow he probably sustained because of the number of matches he has played here. I do not think it casts a doubt on his participation at the French Open. We'll see tomorrow with Bernard Montalvan (the French federation doctor)."

A year ago, Gasquet posted a 10-3 record in the three European Masters Series tournaments staged on red clay — Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg — scoring a victory over World No. 1 Roger Federer in the Monte Carlo quarters and suffering his lone losses to eventual French Open champion Rafael Nadal in the Monte Carlo semifinals, Andre Agassi in the second round of Rome and Federer in the Hamburg final.

Slowed by injury and indecision on court, the 19-year-old Gasquet has slumped to a 5-10 record this season after concluding 2005 with a 31-11 record to finish as France's highest-ranked man at No. 16.

Following his third-round loss to Nadal at the 2005 French Open, Gasquet said he needed to get stronger to compete with Nadal and other top 10 players, but he has not been fully fit for much of this season. A gifted all-court player who possesses one of the most brilliant one-handed backhands in men's tennis, Gasquet beat Paradorn Srichaphan, Taylor Dent and Max Mirnyi in succession to capture his first career championship on the grass courts of Nottingham last June. He posted an 11-2 grass-court record, including reaching the Wimbledon fourth round. Following a five-set setback to Robby Ginepri in the fourth round of the U.S. Open last September, Gasquet played just one event as an elbow injury forced him to prematurely pull the plug on his season in October.

"It's not easy to come back," Nadal told The Sunday Telegraph. "Gasquet was injured and he's one of the best in the world — I like Gasquet a lot — but he hasn't played very well. For a lot of young players the season is long, but I was thinking that he would be playing better in the first part of the year, maybe top 10."