Tennis: Kiwi doubles player in race to be fit for French Open

Marcus Daniell. Photosport

New Zealand doubles player Marcus Daniell has suffered a major setback in his preparation for next month's French Tennis Open.

The world number 36 will be sidelined for at least the next month with a ruptured ligament in his wrist.

Daniell first suffered the injury playing for New Zealand in the Davis Cup tie against China in February.

He initially played through the pain at ATP tournaments in Montpellier, Marseille and Dubai before resting for a week ahead of the Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami and was largely untroubled.

But the problem flared up during his second round defeat at last week's tournament in Marrakech and after receiving treatment at his base in Barcelona, Daniell has accepted he needs to take the next few weeks off at least.

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The 28-year-old will miss next week's ATP tournament in Budapest and subsequent ATP tournaments in Estoril and Rome.

"I am on total cast rest for the next four weeks so I am hoping to come back and play the tour event in Geneva before Roland Garros, that's everything going perfectly."

But Daniell admits he won't take any chances if he's not 100 percent ahead of the year's second Grand Slam.

"Obviously with wrist ligament injuries things can go very far the other way from perfect and as we've seen with Juan Martin del Potro, you have to be really careful with these things. So it would be better for me to take a slightly longer time off now to really get it right because it's a really important ligament and if it becomes unstable that could be the end of my career. So I have to be very wary of it and do all the right things now and all going well I will be back for Geneva and Roland Garros."

Daniell says he's committed to his partnership with Britain's Dominic Inglot and they will now get back together in Geneva before the French Open.

"I don't imagine it will take us too long to get the feeling back now that we've had it."

We weren't going to play together in the two weeks before Geneva. One of those was a training and I was going to play with (ex-Kiwi ) Ben McLaughlin to get in, so not too much is different in the schedule.

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