“I honestly don’t think [he’ll say goodbye]. He’s going to set the limit for himself. I know him a lot, and I think that if he prepares to come back, he prepares to win, he doesn’t prepare to make the quarter-finals.

“He has a very high standard. I think he has not played Roland-Garros, because he was seen in training, that he was not ready to win Roland-Garros, although he could have played it. If he prepares to come back, he comes back to win, not to see what happens.”

Monaco, who reached the Wimbledon third spherical twice, believes Nadal had no choice however to have hip surgical procedure after trying to return for the French Open. He added: “He made a big effort to try to come back after Australia, and every time he strained his leg it bothered him a lot. Until he had to take the decision to have surgery.

“It is a complicated operation, he is doing it to be able to walk calmly tomorrow. Whether he can play tennis again will depend on how much effort he wants to put in. I know how much pain he is in, I know that in the last five years he has been living with a lot of pain.”