Ivanisevic ponders layoff after fresh retirement

Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic said on Saturday that it may finally be time to pay up.

For the second time in as many tournaments the 14th seeded Croat was forced out by his troublesome left shoulder, retiring from his opening round match at the Nasdaq-100 Open Masters while leading Argentine Franco Squillari 4-3.

And with his shoulder and another appearance at Wimbledon hanging by a thread, Ivanisevic thinks maybe God is trying to tell him something.

"I had my dream," Ivanisevic said. "I said last year, if somebody told me you can win Wimbledon and not play tennis ever again, I'd pick win Wimbledon.

"Maybe God heard me and said, 'Ok, it's enough for you'."

More painful than his shoulder for the fiery Croat are thoughts that he may not be able to defend the title he claimed in five delirious sets from Australia's Patrick Rafter last July.

On the brink of retirement, Ivanisevic arrived at the gates of the All-England Club last year hat-in-hand and penned one of the year's most compelling stories by turning a wildcard into unexpected triumph.

LAST CHAPTER

But the 30-year-old Croat believes he has one last chapter to write in his remarkable tale and if his shoulder has only one more tournament left in it, Ivanisevic wants that tournament to be Wimbledon.

With surgery no longer an option, Ivanisevic said he was considering not playing anymore events and resting his shoulder until Wimbledon but cringed at the thought of nearly three months without tennis.

"I want to be there at one o'clock on Monday in London," said Ivanisevic, adding that he was unlikely to play Davis Cup tennis in two weeks when Croatia travels to Buenos Aires to take on Argentina.

"I want to play Wimbledon, that's my priority.

"The plan is I take two, three months off and play Wimbledon...that is the only solution.

"Maybe I might see how it feels and then play the French Open.

"I don't know, I tell you it's tough. I'm going to go crazy two and a half months."

"But the worse think is if I take the whole clay season off and I come to Wimbledon and then it's the same pain then I will hang myself in London somewhere.

"That would be the worse scenario."

It has been a frustrating season for the hard-hitting Croat.

Since crashing out in the second round of the Australian Open Ivanisevic has not won a match, failing to clear the first hurdle at Milan, Rotterdam and Dubai, withdrawing from Indian Wells and now retiring from Miami.

"The tear is just getting bigger and bigger and the pain is getting more and more which I cannot handle," admitted Ivanisevic. "The doctor told me it's a lottery.

"One week can be good, three weeks can be bad.

"That's why I didn't want to operate last year because I thought with the amount of pain I had last year I could survive another season.

"But I wasn't thinking it was going to be worse which it is."