Andy Murray hinted he may play one last tournament before retirement to rid the memory of his injury forfeit at Queen's – even if it's not Wimbledon or at the Olympics this summer.
The tennis legend's participation at Wimbledon was put in severe jeopardy after he was forced to retire from his last 16 clash against Jordan Thompson at the cinch Championships earlier this month due to "neural pain" he suffered in his lower back.
The injury caused a loss of "power" and "co-ordination" in the right leg of the 37-year-old who subsequently underwent surgery for a spinal cyst on Saturday (June 22).
Going under the knife may have ruled out Murray competing at the All England club, but the three-time major champion has refused to rule out a spectacular comeback next month while suggesting he may return to action for one last hurrah before calling it quits.
He said: "I know that there’s more important things in the world than how I finish playing my last tennis match or where I finished playing my last tennis match. But because of what I put into the sport over the last however many years, I would at least like to go out playing a proper match where I’m at least competitive, not what happened at Queen’s."
Murray also hasn't ruled out participating at the Paris Olympics next month but admitted should he not be deemed fit for Wimbledon or the Olympics, it wouldn't necessarily spell the end to his professional career just yet.
"So I can’t say for sure that if I wasn’t able to play at Wimbledon, and I didn’t recover in time to play at the Olympics that I wouldn’t consider trying to play another tournament somewhere," the two-time Wimbledon champion said. "But if I’m able to play at Wimbledon and if I’m able to play at the Olympics, that’s most likely going to be it."
He expanded on his reason behind having the spinal cyst surgery immediately which was a recommendation given to him by numerous doctors. "I was told I had to have the surgery immediately by multiple surgeons because of the nature of the problem," Murray revealed.
"I had a pretty decent sized cyst on my spinal cord which had been seen on a scan post-French Open, but it was pretty small and it grew significantly in size over the next two to three weeks."
Murray has been drawn to play Tomas Machac in the men's singles first round at the start of next week.