Former champion Samantha Stosur is in a fight to retain her US Open seeding, with a hand injury further cruelling her grand slam season.
Stosur is resigned to missing Wimbledon after scans revealed a stress fracture in her right playing hand which needs two months of rest and rehabilitation.
"It happened during the French (Open) and since then I've literally done nothing. It is still pretty sore and swollen, so until that goes down I can't do too much with it," Stosur said on Friday.
"It is highly likely I may not be able to play again until August, so a good eight or nine weeks (of recovery)."
It is another bitter blow for the 33-year-old Australian, who had emerged as one of the Roland Garros favourites following eight straight wins on the European clay.
Stosur stormed to a 4-0 lead in 13 minutes in her fourth-round match against surprise eventual champion Jelena Ostapenko before succumbing to the injury late in the first set.
The one-time world No.4 coughed up three double-faults in one game when it became apparent the issue was seriously troubling her.
"Everything was going really good. I played really well through Strasbourg and the start of Paris was great," Stosur said.
"I felt physically really good and was getting through my matches well, was feeling really confident.
"I definitely felt like things were getting better and better. Then this just came out of nowhere, which makes it even more frustrating because I was on a bit of a roll.
"And now not to be able to play kind of sucks."
Stosur is in a battle against time to return to the court and defend valuable rankings points for the US Open starting in late August.
Champion in New York in 2011, Stosur is defending points from six events between now and Flushing Meadows, including one quarter-final in Washington among a total of eight wins.
Stosur's management on Friday confirmed that while the Queenslander had yet to officially withdraw from Wimbledon, she wouldn't compete at the All England Club, ending a streak of 37 grand slam appearances since missing the 2008 Australian Open while suffering from Lyme's Disease.
"I had a pretty good run I guess, so I've got to look at it on the positive side," she said.
"But certainly to miss any slam is disappointing. Even Wimbledon, where sometimes I've struggled on the grass, it is still not a great feeling not to be there."
Her latest setback comes a week after Stosur relinquished the Australian top ranking for the first time in almost eight years to Daria Gavrilova.
Entrenched in the top 25 for almost a decade, the veteran needs to climb back into the world's top 32 by mid-August to secure a US Open seeding, assuming she's fit again by then.
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