Eight time Grand Slam champion Ken Rosewall fears that Lleyton Hewitt's career could be ended by another major injury.

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Hewitt has been on the tour for well over a decade now and Rosewall cannot see the 30 year old carrying on for too much longer.

The last time he beat a top 40 player was back in March and after injury restricted him to just 20 matches in 2011, Hewitt has sunk to 186 in the rankings. Ever the crowd favourite, he has been offered a wildcard for the Australian Open (Hewitt reached the final back in 2005) but a chronic foot injury has meant that his participation is in serious doubt.

''If he does get too many other serious niggling injuries, I'd imagine he'd have to give it a miss,'' Rosewall told the Canberra Times.

''He has been unlucky that he has come up with these injuries, but maybe that's because of certain elements. The way he's played so much on hard courts, whether that has had any bearing, there's always a question mark about that. 'I think he's the kind of player who would like to continue playing but if he has any number of bad loss, in his own mind, he's going to figure it out that it's not doing him much good.''

Like ageing boxers, tennis players also find it hard to let go, particularly warriors like Hewitt and Rosewall who continued playing well into his forties, knows how tough it is to call it quits.