A battered Bernard Tomic will revise his gruelling schedule after all but securing a French Open seeding with a career-best run at Indian Wells.
A back injury and tooth ache stalled Tomic's finest start to a season yet when he was forced to withdraw from his quarter-final on Thursday with world No.1 and defending champion Novak Djokovic.
Into the last eight for the first time at a Masters Series event, Tomic made his decision to pull out of the showdown several hours before it was to open the evening session on the Tennis Garden stadium court.
He later revealed he was battling a tooth ache as well as back and hip issues, unwanted legacies of his effort in reaching six quarter-finals from seven events in 2015.
"I'm on medication the last few days for the infected area, my wisdom tooth," Tomic said.
"The face is inflamed even more on the right side of my cheekbone. It's tough for me to actually even move and rotate my head, so I can't really be turning.
"I'm scared to run on the back, as well.
"Everything is not good for me. And I had to play Novak, so it's not something I want to go on the court with.
"Maybe if one of those things wasn't there I could have played, but having two is not good."
Despite the setback, Tomic is set to climb into the world's top 30 on Monday, inside the seeding zone for Roland Garros.
The claycourt grand slam begins in late May and Australia's No.1 said he would have a scheduling rethink and may need to pull out of next week's Miami Masters and have some much-needed R & R.
"I needed to play these last five weeks. I needed all these (ranking) points," Tomic said.
"It's probably a rough schedule, but this last month is something I needed to get those points.
"I can look to where I want to play more. That's going to be the most important thing till the French, choosing the right tournaments to play."
Djokovic will get an extra day's rest before he faces fourth seed Andy Murray for a spot in Sunday's final.
Murray set a record for open era wins by a British man with his 6-3 6-4 win over Feliciano Lopez.
Murray now has 497 match wins, surpassing Tim Henman for the most in the open era by a British player.
"I was able to deal with his difficult spins today but it was tough because he fought right to the end," said Murray, now just three wins shy of the 500-win milestone.
There are just eight active players, including Australia's former world No.1 Lleyton Hewitt, and only 45 in open era history to hit the 500 mark.
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