After a prolonged absence of 5 years, Robin Soderling, the only man to defeat Rafael Nadal at the French Open hopes to make a return at the ATP Tour in the next calendar year.

Since July 2011, Soderling has been kept out of the game because of severe glandular fever, but still feels that he has “some good years” ahead.

“I’m actually finally doing a lot better,” says the 30-year-old Swede.

“I wouldn’t say I’m 100%, but not very far from it, which is a great feeling.”

He added: “Hopefully – if it continues to progress the way it has been – then maybe, it’s tough to say, but maybe six months or a year from now I can hopefully start to train 100%.

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“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.”

The Swede says he started to develop a light fever and a sore throat during the 2011 Wimbledon Championships but managed to win an ATP event later that year in Bastad, Sweden which remains his most recent appearance on the ATP Tour.

“In the beginning I didn’t think so much about it because I was feeling so bad: I had problems going from my bed to the bathroom,” he said.

“But then after a while, as I started to feel physically better, it was tough of course mentally: all [manner of] thoughts started going through my head about maybe I cannot ever play tennis again. But I did some other stuff. I had a kid and I learnt that tennis is a big part of my life but it’s not my whole life as I thought it was before.”

“Sometimes I wish I had been a little bit more humble as a player, because sometimes you could complain about really small things like there’s no water on the court.” he added.