Hi again!

This is Eeyore the donkey (Robert Lindstedt) writing to you again. Sorry about that...  I was surprised when I got an email from the ATP asking me to write another blog as they had found my first one pretty good. Really??? 

Right now I am sitting in my hotel room in Lyon after having retired from our match on Tuesday evening. My arm was simply too bad to continue. I have had problems for a long time but now it has simply got too much. 150 mg of Voltaren and I still felt bad out there. Someone once told me that "the signs are there" and if you take 3x50mg of Voltaren pills and you still feel pain, believe me, the signs are there!!! So I stayed an extra day here to have some tests and it looks like we found the problem. Have to wait and see. 

I felt really bad for my partner, Martin Damm, about this whole mess. I have not retired from many matches in my life and for sure, not a lot of doubles matches! In singles you only have yourself to think about, but in doubles you have another guy’s career in your hands as well. So the decision was not easy to make! It was not how I wanted our campaign to end.

I felt after Stockholm that something was worse than usual, so I flew to Lyon with a troubled mind. But this is tennis. It is so competitive that you have to push yourself to the limit pretty much every day and I guess I crossed one of mine. The only reason to have tried to continue was to try and make the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. But then we would have had to win one tournament and do really well in Paris. And to do so without a lot of practice and not being 100 per cent fit, well...  At this level everybody is so damn good that it is impossible to win matches if you are not 100 per cent ready to play. At least for me, I am not good enough to win matches unless I am fit and ready to go - well that and having a lot of luck, my opponents being injured or blind! So in my mind it was impossible to do as well as we needed to. Thanks Marty for playing this season!

Anyway, it means that the season is over for me. No Valencia and no Paris (Bercy). Ending the season with only two tournaments left is not the biggest sacrifice you can make in tennis, but as we still had a small chance to make the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London it hurts a little extra. But my reasoning is sound, at least to me. Take care of my elbow issues now and then get back strong and healthy for the 2010 season with my new doubles partner.

I'll let you know soon who it will be as I know ALL of you out there wake up each day wondering who it is going to be. It is what you talk about at the water cooler at work and during your lunch breaks. Who is Lindstedt going to play with next year???  I had a missed call from the Swedish Prime Minister, who left a message saying he needed to know! Riiight...  And then I saw Marcin Matkowski in the gym...  Dziekuje!!!
 
So what to do now?  Well, I will not touch a racquet for a while, that's for sure. Just try to get rid of this injury. My former doubles partner, Jarkko Nieminen, introduced me to his physio a few years back. His name is Jarmo Ahonen and he is really, really good. So I will go to Helsinki, Finland for a few weeks like I have done the past couple of years for rehab and fitness. Jarmo has done something like five or six Olympics as a physiotherapist for Finland, so he knows what he is doing.

I heard lying on a beach under an umbrella with a drink in your hand helps a lot too, so I think I simply have to do this! (Gonna be a lot of umbrellas next to my sun lounger...) I mean, I don't really want to, but if it helps, then who am I to object?!? 

Other than that, being in Sweden for a while is not too bad either! Being on the road as much as we all are makes you really miss home and everything about it. Everything from friends and family to simple things like food or candy! But also doing the things you can't really do during the season, like eating a little bit unhealthily and enjoying life. For me, if I don't do this, then it is so much more difficult to be a "good boy" during the season. I am pretty sure I will gain a few kilos this month. Damn!

Daniel Nestor wrote that it is a great time to be a sports fan in the States now with everything going on. The Swedish ice hockey league is now in full swing and the Swedish soccer season is about to end. So a lot going on there too. My team in soccer, Djurgården, is fighting to stay in the first division. Not good if they drop out!!! Kom igen!!!
 
Not much more to say. I'm on holiday now I guess. Not too bad. Hey, where's my drink???!!!??