Robin Soderling Announces His Retirement From Tennis
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Forever to be known as the first player to ever beat Rafael Nadal at the French Open, Robin Soderling has finally announced his retirement.
The Swede, who stunned Nadal at the 2009 French Open, hasn’t played since his 2011 title Bastad title due to a lengthy battle with mono.
“With this letter I want to inform you that I have decided to end my career as a professional tennis player,” Soderling wrote in a statement via Google Translation. “A few weeks before the ATP race the Swedish Open in Bastad in 2011 I became ill in glandular fever. Since I was not then realized the seriousness of this, I made the mistake of continue to train and compete with the virus in the body which also resulted in that I suffered 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 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 unfortunately still not as I would like.
“To play the competitions that require physical exertion over an extended period has thus 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 that I will be able to play tennis at the level I demand of myself. The reason 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 that they maximize their 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 major difficulties to take this decision. Instead of being annoyed everywhere I potentially have passed, and loses, 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 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 for 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.”
Soderling is the Stockholm tournament director and he runs tennis ball company.
31-year-old finishes with 10 career titles including one Masters title in Paris. He also reached two Grand Slam finals at the 2009 and 2010 French Opens. He reached a career-high No. 4 on November 15, 2010.
He was ranked No. 5 when he last played winning 2011 Bastad. His final point:
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