Lucie Safarova spoke of her relief at being able to return to competitive action after recovering from a bacterial infection that left her hospitalised for a week.

Safarova had to miss the US Open and the entire Asian swing of the WTA Tour due to the illness she suffered while recovering from an injury.

But the world number seven will make her comeback against Andreea Mitu in the first round of the Generali Ladies Linz on Tuesday and is ready to make up for lost time.

She told the WTA website: "Well, first of all, unfortunately I got injured in the finals of New Haven with an abdominal strain and I tried to play the US Open, but I couldn't perform as I wished.

"Since I knew I had two weeks to heal my muscle, I decided to go to Corfu for four days to relax. After that I went back to the Czech Republic and then I had an appointment with my doctor to check my abdominal muscle.

"The next morning I woke up and unfortunately had this bacterial infection. At first I thought it would just be a regular cold for a couple of days, but it just got worse and worse and after approximately four days it was so bad that I had to be hospitalised for a week.

"I couldn't eat or drink or anything, so they needed to give me an IV and I had to take antibiotics for five days. It was pretty scary at one point because I started on two antibiotics and they weren't helping, so finally it was penicillin that helped.

"After that I had to be at home for one more week with antibiotics and now I'm slowly coming back. But the whole thing was a pretty bad experience. It was my first time to be in a hospital. No one wants to be there. And I don't know how it happened – I just woke up with it one day and it was just there."

The 28-year-old Czech is determined to finish the season on a high note as she strives to secure a WTA Finals place in Singapore.

"Well, I got plenty of time to rest. At least something is positive about this," she added.

"I was really sad, because I was ready to start again and go for the Asian circuit. But with this it got suspended. It's been five weeks of tennis I've missed, which is probably the most I've missed in my life.

"But it's been about a week since I started running, a little bit of tennis too, and I got the green light from the doctors to compete again, so I'm very excited to start playing matches again this week.

"People are usually pretty tired by this part of the season, so at least I have that advantage of being excited to be back on the court again. Hopefully I will be strong enough to do well these weeks."