Nicolas Kiefer

Nicholas Kiefer has announced his immediate retirement.

Kiefer has come under fire from local German media and in particular former countryman star Michael Stich, who is the tournament director of the current Braunschweig challenger.

Kief was originally handed a wildcard to play in the event, before later rejecting it post his first-round (retirement) loss to David Ferrer at Wimbledon.

Stich said; "The rejection of Nicolas Kiefer is highly disrespectful. He didn't give me any notice. Top 10 players wouldn't do that to me, so he shouldn't. The focus of some professionals is not good".

Nicolas Kiefer has been offered one of five wildcards already granted for the men's singles at Wimbledon.

According to his official website, Nicolas Kiefer will be granted a wildcard for ATP Munich. It still has to be determined whether it is for the qualies or even the main draw.

After his groin surgery in January, Kiefer has worked with former top player Anders Jarryd in his hometown Hannover. In addition to that, Kiefer has happily announced that he will become a father later this year.

Full story (in German though): www.nicolaskiefer.de/index2.php

Kiefer out again no surprise - skipping Miami, and a return to tennis is becoming increasingly doubtful for the injury-plagued German veteran.

Kiefer's recovery is still keeping him sidelined, the German has pulled out of the qualifying field for Indian Wells which will see further points drop off after next week because he won a round last year and has already plummetted to 110 in the world.

Retirement is imminent, much in similar vein to Tommy Haas.

A groin problem has prevented Kiefer, not only from receiving a Heilbronn wildcard this week which was on the cards, but also from competing next week in Johannesburg.

The German's future is still in doubt given his long run with injuries, his current age and his continuous dip down the rankings which makes it almost impossible for him to get direct entry into a lot of events without a wildcard.

German veteran Nicolas Kiefer was meant to round out his season with an appearance in the Helsinki challenger this week, but has decided to withdraw from the event and freshen up for January.

Interesingly, Kiefer said that "his mind and body were not ready to play two more weeks of tennis" in what seemed to be another hint to the Tour's head body that the season is simply too long.

@Sickboy: Sorry mate, but I do not have a Tennisform account and do not plageurise work of others. As I have worked with the owner of Tennisform before, I can safely say that doing such a thing would ever come across my mind.

With knowledge about the ticker (having quite a large tennis network some of whom use it, and having had demo access to it before), I can estimate that around 80% of the material that it posted on there is accessible to the public and I use a lot of my own sources which will seize the info put onto the ticker.

Player website blogs, translated European and South American online or newspaper reports, tennis dome sites and other forums are a source of a lot of my info, so just to let you know that I do not use Tennisform Ticker for the stuff posted in the Player Diary.

I am also pretty sure that there is a bit of info that isn't on the Ticker that is on Tennis Insight, or that has been dragged from TI to TF.

Attention of Destroyer. I've noticed all your quotes are picked up from tennisform ticker. As I pay for this service, I find it a little unfair that you are posting all the quotes on here claiming that you have found them yourself.