Tennis world No. 15 Arthur Fils has been forced to ditch Wimbledon through injury. It comes weeks after his opponent accused him of faking a fitness issue during a gruelling French Open clash.

Fils is France's top-ranked star but will take no part at Wimbledon due to a back problem he exacerbated at Roland Garros. The 21-year-old insists he had been struggling with the issue for some time before making it worse in his victory over Jaume Munar in Paris. During that match, Munar accused Fils of faking his injury, believing he was only suffering from cramps. The Frenchman went on to win an epic five-setter against his Spanish rival.

His withdrawal comes after Fils warned that he might not make Wimbledon, suggesting earlier this month: "We're going to try to see if I can be ready for Wimbledon. It's a big question mark. After that, I'm 20, I still have time on the tour, it's not the time to rush.

"On the contrary, if I can take a little more time to recover well and be ready to play the whole season on hard courts and the end of the year, that's not bad."

Fils revealed after facing Munar that the back injury has caused him issues since his formative years, adding: "I had some issue with the back since a long time, and during the match against Munar it gets worse. Then I did some exams. The exams were not good at all. Got some stress fracture.

"Yeah, whatever, we decide with the team it was better to stop now, because if I'm stopping now, I could stop for only four to six weeks. If I was pushing myself too much, I would probably stop for a couple of months.

"It's the lower back. I got this issue a couple of times already when I was young. Yeah, L-5. So yeah, I got some issues like this in the past already. It's an injury that happens quite often when you are a child. It's a stress fracture injury.

"It happened to me twice. I had to wear a back brace. Then it healed. But also, my lower back is arched, so then I had a bone marrow edema. It's coming back right now. So I have to find a way to cure that and to get past that."

Fils' place has been taken by cult hero Fabio Fognini, who, at 38, is set to take place in his 15th Wimbledon.