Ross Hutchins has expressed his joy at returning to the sport following his remarkable fight against cancer.
The 28-year-old doubles specialist, who was beginning six months of chemotherapy this time last year to remove the Hodgkin's lymphoma that had invaded his body, has had to build up his fitness from scratch after being told that he was in remission in July.
However, Hutchins secured his first victory since his return to the tour as he and Colin Fleming beat Marinko Matosevic and Michal Przysiezny 4-6 6-4 6-0 in the first round of the Australian Open.
"It's an amazing feeling to be back, and especially to get our first win since coming back in 2014," Hutchins told reporters. "I think we have played some good tennis throughout this year so far, but unfortunately we lost our first two matches.
"My level probably wasn't as high as I hoped it had been. But I think we did well to dig out a win today. It was actually brilliant to be honest, and I'm loving the feeling right now. This is a fantastic tournament, and I'm just thrilled to be back involved and back able to hopefully try to win more matches.
"The start of today's match, I think we were both a little bit nervous. We wanted it a bit badly. I played a bad service game to start off, and then we weren't getting really very far in their service games. Then at the end of the first set, I think we picked our game up and a couple of things clicked. Throughout the whole third set, we actually felt like I hadn't missed a year."
Fleming admitted that winning the match "was a real release" following a tough year off the court.
Matt Cotton
