Sloane Stephens has withdrawn from the Merida Open in Mexico, days after announcing the end of her marriage with former Premier League player Jozy Altidore. The 2017 US Open champion and Sunderland’s former striker married on New Year’s Day in 2022, after first meeting as children while attending the same middle school in Florida.

Stephens announced their split on Instagram Stories on Saturday. She said: “Jozy and I have decided to end our marriage. With peace, I am navigating this transition with mutual respect and kindly ask for privacy during this time. Thank you for your love, understanding and continued support.”

Two days later came confirmation of her withdrawal from the WTA 500 tournament. Lucky loser Priscilla Hon, who lost in straight sets to Cadence Brace in the second round of qualifying on Sunday, replaces Stephens as the first-round opponent of Renata Zarazua.

Stephens pulling out means she has still not played since losing her first-round match at the Australian Open to Karolina Pliskova in straight sets. After coming through qualifying, her first wins since 2024, the American forced a first-set tiebreaker from 5-1 down, but lost that 9-7 and the world No. 1 won the next set 6-2.

The one-time Grand Slam champion said at a press conference afterwards that her goals for this year were “to play a lot of tennis, whatever that means.” She added: “I don’t know where that’s going to take me, but be pain-free, healthy and win a lot of matches.”

Stephens played just five matches last year after being sidelined from late February to mid-September because of a stress fracture in her right foot. As such, she was just happy to have ended her hoodoo at the first opportunity this year.

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“I think that the three matches were super helpful for me since I haven’t won a match since 2024,” Stephens said. “Either way, it was a win for me, and I’m happy that I just came and did it and kind of just got the monkey off my back, and I’m just ready to play again and go to the next tournament.”

Personal reasons, however, are now preventing her from returning to the court after she skipped the Middle East swing. The plan after Stephens’ Australian Open exit was to return for Merida and then compete at Indian Wells and Miami before beginning the clay-court season in Charleston.

She said: “I’m going to do that and see how I hold up, how I get on, and go from there. I might play a few extras on the clay this year.

“I’m not sure; it depends on where I get in because I’m still on the special ranking. We’ll see. Now that the thousands draws are bigger, so I’ll be in the qualifiers of those, which is also fine, but it’ll be interesting.”