Ross Hutchins is completing an extra-ordinary circle as he prepares for his tennis comeback at the place where a year ago the word cancer unexpectedly came into his life.
Hutchins and partner Colin Fleming had finished their 2012 season among the top-10 doubles teams in the world and were at La Manga Club in southern Spain preparing for what they had hoped would be an even better campaign.
But Hutchins was struggling with back pain that had been affecting him for 18 months and for which he had not found a cause.
It was a physio at La Manga who first suggested it could be a symptom of something more serious, and when Hutchins headed home for tests, it was discovered he had Hodgkins lymphoma.
The cancer had already spread throughout his body but, after six months of intensive chemotherapy, he was told he was in remission in July.
Now Hutchins is back at La Manga alongside Scot Fleming preparing to make his comeback at the ATP Tour event in Brisbane in two weeks’ time.
He told Press Association Sport: “I’ve come here for 18 years and it’s an absolute gem for me. I love it. I actually look at it favourably last year because it’s the place that almost made me realise that I had the cancer.
“I will never think of this place with any negative thoughts. It’s the place that fixed me.”
Fresh from a training camp with best friend Andy Murray and top British prospect Kyle Edmund in Miami, Hutchins is back to full health.
He goes for scans every three months to check he is still in remission but believes physically he is almost back to where he was before chemotherapy.
Tennis wise, Hutchins puts himself at 60% but hopes that will be close to 90% by the time the season starts, and higher still for the Australian Open in four weeks’ time.
The 28-year-old will not allow his ordeal to affect the ambition he has for himself and Fleming, central to which is qualifying for the end-of-season ATP World Tour Finals.
Hutchins said: “I never thought I’d need a second chance. I knew I’d get injuries but to have to stop and go through a different sort of recuperation and what I’ve had to do the last year, it’s been an experience for me.
“Looking back now a year later I’m pleased and very proud of myself and of the team around me that we’ve been able to get to a stage where I feel I’m able to prepare flat out and be going to Australia fully fit and raring to go.
“Just because we’ve had a year off, it doesn’t mean we can’t pick up where we left off across the whole of 2014.”