Robin Soderling

– Triput sam pokušavao da se vratim na teren posle mononukleoze i nisam uspeo, što je ostavilo veliki trag na moju psihu. Prihvatio sam da se možda nikada neću vratiti i kada sam doneo odlulku da konačno stanem, bilo je teško, ali sam osetio i olakšanje jer više nisam morao da se borim da se bratim i da živim u neizvesnosti. Tada sam morao da vidim šta ću dalje sa svojim životom. Bilo je čudno, prvih šest meseci posle toga uopšte me nije bilo briga za tenis, bila je to lepa pauza. Kada si bolestan, shvatiš da je zdravlje najvažnije. Bilo je to ludo jer sam tokom karijere mario jedino za tenis, a sada mi je samo bilo važno da mi bude bolje. Posle nekog vremena gledao sam tenis na TV, video igrače koji su mi bili rivali i želeo sam da sam na terenu, bilo je mentalno teško. – rekao je on i nastavio:

– Bilo mi je potrebno pet godina da se vratim u stanje u kojem mogu da treniram kako hoću. Tada sam osetio da je prekasno za povratak, nisam imao ni energije. Nije lako biti vrhunski sportista. Bilo je trenutaka u karijeri u kojima sam preozbiljno sve shvatao, voleo bih da nisam, živeo sam u balonu u kojem je sve bilo tenis. Kako je vreme prolazilo i ja postajao bolji, oduzimao sam sebi sve više stvari u kojima sam uživao, mislio sam da je to potrebno ako želim da budem najbolji. Vredelo bi ako bih pobeđivao, ali bih se osećao sj..no ako bih gubio. Sada vidim da je to bio samo sport, a ja nisam imao dugmu za paljenje i za gašenje.

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#LegendaryBTR- “I tried to make a comeback, from mono, three separate years, which all failed. This all grew on me and took a major toll on my mind. I accepted that maybe I could never come back. When I made the decision to finally stop it was hard but also a bit of a relief. I didn’t have to fight to come back and live in this uncertainty. After making the decision I could finally accept it and figure out how to live my life again. It was a weird feeling during my first six months after my career because I didn’t care about tennis, it was a nice break. I almost didn’t care if I were to come back. When you get really sick you start to realize your health is most important. It’s crazy because during my career tennis was the only thing I cared about. At this point I only cared about getting better, it was simple. After some time I was watching tennis on TV seeing players I was playing against. I was wishing to just be on the court again, competing. It was mentally tough. My first year out I didn’t do any physical activity because I didn’t want to aggravate anything. It has taken about five years for me to get back to a point where I could train however I wanted. At this time I felt like it has been too long a period for me to return to tennis. I didn’t have the energy to do so either. I don’t blame it specifically on anything I did. Being a top athlete in any sport is not easy. There are times where I blame myself. There were moments in my career where I wish I would have been able to take a step back or not take it as seriously. I was living in this bubble where everything was tennis. As the years went on, and as I became better, I took away more and more of the things I enjoyed to do. I thought this is what I needed to do to be the best I could be. It was all worth it if I won my matches and ranking improved, but if I didn’t it felt as if everything was f**ked. I see it now as just a sport. My biggest issue was not having that on and off switch. Tennis doesn’t make it easy to ‘turn it off’ and you have to find ways during the season to take care of yourself and just rest.” @rsoderling Go to behindtheracquet.com for extended stories, podcasts and merch.

A post shared by Behind The Racquet (@behindtheracquet) on Apr 5, 2020 at 9:36am PDT

Soderling je poslednji meč odigrao 2011. godine. U karijeri je osvojio 10 ATP titula. Najbolji rang mu je četvrto mesto svetske liste.

(Tenis Uživo, J. Erdei)

Teme:   Robin Soderling, Teniseri, Vesti