Despite the incident, Nalbandian said afterwards that he hoped to return to the Queen's Club next year. "This incident doesn't mean that I'm not going to come back," the Argentinian said. "I really feel good at this tournament. This is a bad situation for everybody and I really apologise for that but it doesn't mean anything to next year."
Nalbandian did, however, compound the situation by accusing the ATP, the governing body of the men's tour, of having a number of rules the players did not agree with, including forcing them to play when conditions were not fit. "Sometimes the ATP puts a lot of pressure on the players and sometimes you get injured because you play on a dangerous surface," he said. "Nothing happens, no one pays for that."
The 6,000-strong crowd sided with Nalbandian immediately after the incident, many of them unaware that the kick had caused such damage to the left leg of Mr McDougall, who needed treatment for the injury.
