KEY BISCAYNE (Florida), March 20: Alisa Kleybanova says she will bring a whole new approach to her tennis career when she returns to tournament action on Tuesday after a ten-month battle with cancer.

The Russian was in the top 20 and tipped to rise higher in the game before she was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkins lymphoma after the Italian Open last May.

After undergoing chemotherapy in Italy, the 22-year-old is now ready to restart her career as a wild card at the Sony Ericsson, where she faces Sweden’s Johanna Larsson in the first round.

“I don’t want to think about rankings, I just want to be on the court and feel good. I just want to be myself,” she said. I have a huge motivation to just live at 100 per cent, every day of my life.”

Kleybanova said she had been suffering excessive fatigue and flu-like symptoms for some time before medical tests produced the shocking news.

“Something was going on because I kept getting sick but then I always got over it and I was playing tournaments and feeling pretty good,” she said. “In Rome, obviously, I got really, really sick and couldn’t get over it anymore. So we started to do all the controls and exams.”—Reuters