Maria Sharapova has pulled out of next week’s Dubai Championships with an arm injury.

The 30-year-old struggled physically after her comeback from a 15-month doping ban last April, missing two and a half months with a thigh injury and then picking up an arm problem on her return in July.

Sharapova finished last season relatively strongly and began 2018 with a run to the semi-finals in Shenzhen before reaching the third round of the Australian Open, but she was beaten in the first round in Doha on Monday by Romania’s Monica Niculescu.