Ferrer (seen here at the 2010 Rogers Cup in Toronto), has missed Wimbledon, Davis Cup and Hamburg with his elbow issue. And now Montreal. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)

Spanish No. 1 David Ferrer hasn't played since losing in the first round of the Wimbledon warm-up tournament in Nottingham in June because of a bad elbow.

So it's not a major surprise that he announced Wednesday that he will miss the Rogers Cup in Montreal.

Ya que aun no estoy bien de mi lesión en el codo,siento decir que no podré estar en el torneo de Montreal. Os iré informando de mi evolución — David Ferrer (@DavidFerrer87) August 5, 2015

Ferrer had to skip Wimbledon, and a fairly big clay-court event in Hamburg last week, because of the injury.

Typically, players will wait as long as possible in this situation to withdraw, hoping that every extra day of rehab and treatment might give them a chance to compete. But with a couple of days to go before Friday's official draw, Ferrer actually did the tournament – and Milos Raonic in particular – somewhat of a favour.

Ferrer would have been the No. 6 seed. His pullout means that Raonic, who would have been seeded No. 9, now moves up into the No. 8, and thus can benefit from a potential extra round before meeting one of the top eight seeds.

At No. 9, the top Canadian wouldn't have the first-round bye the top eight seeds enjoy. Now, he will. And at No. 9, he also could have faced any of the No. 5 through No. 8 seeds as early as the third round – in this case a Tomas Berdych, a Marin Cilic or – most notably this year, Rafael Nadal.

Next on the entry list, and another beneficiary of Ferrer's withdrawal, is Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky, who should move up to the main draw and not have to go through the qualifying.