Former world No.4 Robin Soderling has announced his retirement from tennis after trying to stage a comeback at the age of 31.
The Swede hasn’t played on the tour since 2011 and being struck down with Glandular fever. Due the effects from the illness Solderling has been left suffering from chronic fatigue in recent years. In 2015 he resumed training with the hope that he will be able to return to the tour in 2016. During an interview with the BBC in May, the Swede was very optimistic about a comeback.
“My goal was to play a long career and to play until I was way over 30. If I can become healthy, I still feel that I have some good years in me. Look at the way the players on the tour are performing now at a high age – that gives me a little bit of hope.” He said.
The hope is now over after Solderling released a lengthy statement to Swedish media confirming his retirement. In the letter he said that despite being able to increase his training this year, the 31-year-old was still struggling to recover from training. In the letter the Swede called it a ‘sad decision’. The full statement sent to tennis.se reads the following (rough translation from Swedish to English).
“With this letter I want to inform you that I have decided to end my career as a professional tennis player. A few weeks before the ATP race, the Swedish Open in Bastad in 2011 I became ill with glandular fever. Since I did not then realize the seriousness of this, I made the mistake of continuing to train and compete with the virus in my body, which also resulted in my suffering a sharp overtraining syndrome. I have since struggled to recover completely from this. With the disease, it has been impossible for me to train one hundred percent and I have been forced to rest after any physical effort. Some periods I felt so bad that I was completely bedridden. This past year, however, my health improved and I have been able to increase my exercise dose, but my recovery after exercise works are unfortunately still not as I would like. To play the competitions that require physical exertion over an extended period has been excluded. In all the years I have believed that I would be able to take me back to the world elite in tennis but now I’ve realized that I will not be healthy enough to play tennis at the level I demand of myself. This reason is why I have decided to end my career as a professional tennis player.
Of course, this is a very sad decision. Now in hindsight, I feel that I should have listened better to my body, and then have avoided the illness, but on the other hand, it is always easy to be wise and tennis is a sport that requires workouts to maintain a position in the top of the world. With that in mind, and then I know I’ve done everything in my power in recent years to eradicate the disease, I can, without any major difficulties make this decision. Instead of being annoyed with everybody I potentially have passed, and lost to, I feel fortunate and can proudly look back on my career as very successful. I have achieved and have experienced things that few are privileged.
Although my career as a tennis player is over, I see a bright future and my schedule for the next few years are already packed. First of all, I have my wonderful partner and two children I spend a lot of time with. I have also been instrumental in starting the company RS-Tennis, where we manufacture tennis balls and other tennis equipment. It’s been surprisingly good for RS-tennis and we have already established sales in more than forty countries in the world. This is something I will now be able to add even more time trying to improve and develop.
First and foremost, I want to thank my family who have supported and shown patience with me all these years. I also want to thank my fans who have shown tremendous support, both during my career, but even also in recent years been very tough for me. Without this support I would never have been able to continue to try to get back to the top. “
During Soderling’s career he reached the final of the French Open in 2009 and 2010. At the 2009 French Open he became the first player in history to defeat Rafael Nadal at the tournament. On the ATP Tour the former world No.4 has won 10 titles, including the 2010 Paribas Masters. During his career, he has produced wins over former world No. 1’s Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal and Mraat Safin.
