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Stefanos Tsitsipas has cast doubts over his future in tennis after retiring from his first-round match at Wimbledon. The 24th seed received treatment on his back during an on-court medical time-out in the second set of his match against qualifier Valentin Royer and played on. But after going 6-3 6-2 down, Tsitsipas decided to throw in the towel.

The 12-time title winner has now confirmed that he's been dealing with an ongoing back issue and has already ruled out getting surgery. After the injury came back to haunt him on Monday, Tsitsipas said: "I don't know what to do."

The former world No. 3 "hates" retiring from matches, but felt he was left with no choice against Royer.

"It's tough to describe. I mean, I'm battling many wars these days. It's really painful to see myself in a situation like this," he said after his first-round retirement.

"I feel like I'm left without answers. I don't know. I've tried everything. I've done an incredible job with my fitness. I've done an incredible job with my physiotherapy, so I've maximized on everything that I possibly can do.

"Right now, I'm just absolutely left with no answers. I don't know what to do."

Aged just 26, Tsitsipas already appears to be having thoughts of cutting his career short if he can't find a solution.

He continued: "It's probably the most difficult situation that I've ever been faced with, because it's an ongoing issue that doesn't seem to be disappearing or fading off as much.

"Myself, as a person, I have a limit at some point, so I'll definitely have to have my final answer on whether I want to do stuff or not in the next couple of months.

"This is going to be hard, but if I see it going in that trajectory, there is no point at competing. If I'm not healthy, and I've talked about health so many times, if health is not there, then your whole tennis life becomes miserable."

Tsitsipas has been carrying the injury since 2023, when he was forced to retire during his ATP Finals match against Holger Rune.

"You'll understand that it's one of those injuries that you can't be taking lightly, because your whole -- tennis is a rotational sport, and if you can't rotate, then there's no reason playing it," he said, referencing that match.

"It's something that I've been dealing with for many years now, my lower left side back. It's exactly what Arthur Fils went through the last couple of weeks playing at the French Open. I feel like it can be a very tricky injury."

And the two-time Grand Slam finalist is so far gone that he believes surgery won't resolve the issue.

He added: "No, surgery would definitely be not an option, and the damage has been done already.

"It's very unfortunate, because I remember saying to myself that something bad might happen, and I had a small burnout in that particular part of the season when I played Davis Cup and had to go to China a few weeks later.

"I remember saying that something bad might happen if I played for so many weeks in a row. I played a lot of weeks in a row. I didn't do well at the US Open, but I still played a lot, practised a lot. So that was the time in the period that that happened. So just to show you that the tour can be very taxing on your body."

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