Robin Soderling has announced his retirement from professional tennis due to illness.
The 31-year-old reached back-to-back French Open finals in 2009 and 2010, but has been suffering from glandular fever since 2011, which has now forced him to call time on his career.
Soderling is perhaps best remembered for ending Rafael Nadal's 31-match winning streak at Roland Garros in 2009 before losing to Roger Federer in the final that year.
"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 Swedish Open in Bastad in 2011 I became ill with glandular fever," Soderling wrote on tennis.se.
"Since I was not aware of the seriousness of this, I made the mistake of continuing to train and compete with the virus in my body, which resulted in a sharp overtraining syndrome. I have since struggled to recover completely from this. With the disease it has been impossible for me to train 100% and I was forced to rest after any physical effort. In some periods I felt so bad that I was completely bed-ridden.
"This past year, however, my health improved and I have been able to increase my exercise levels, but my recovery after exercise is unfortunately still not as I would like. I've realised that I will not be healthy enough to be able to play tennis at the level I demand of myself. For that reason I have decided to end my career as a professional tennis player.
"I feel fortunate and can proudly look back on my career as being very successful. I have achieved and have experienced things that few are privileged to."
Soderling never made it past the quarter-finals of any other Grand Slam, but did reach a career-high of fourth in the world rankings.
Barney Corkhill
