After having beaten Sweden’s Robin Soderling 6–1, 6–0 at the Rome Masters a couple of weeks ago, Spain’s Rafael Nadal was not expected to have much trouble getting into the French Open quarterfinals on Sunday.
But that’s why they play the game.
After 3 ½ hours of play, Sweden’s Robin Bo Carl Soderling, ranked 25th in the world, eliminated the top-ranked and prohibitive French Open favorite from the tournament 6–2, 6–7 (7), 6–4, 7–6 (2).
Using his 6’4” height, playing wide shots, using the whole court, and showing gritty determination, Soderling was able to overpower Rafael Nadal.
The pressure of playing against the world’s No. 1 seemed not to have any effect on Soderling who dictated many rallies, putting the pressure on Nadal with many balls painting the lines.
Soderling had a great serving day. First serves of 135 mph were common and he even launched a second serve at 125 mph.
During the breaks, Soderling was hiding his head in his towel to keep his concentration. The Monte Carlo resident kept playing boldly until the very end. At 4–4 in the final set both players started to show signs of nerves, but Nadal couldn’t make use of his experience with similar nerve-racking games.
At 5–5 and 0–15, Nadal looked at this trainer with doubt in his eyes. But he managed to hold serve. Soderling stayed calm and leveled the score 6–6 and took the match to a tiebreak after three hours and 22 minutes of play.
With the same carefree attitude, Soderling took a 6–1 lead in the tiebreak leaving Nadal with a mountain to climb. Nadal saved one match point, but could not save the second.
Soderling stopped Nadal from winning at Roland Garros five times in a row. If he would have managed to do that, he would have done better than Bjorn Borg, another Swede, who won Roland Garros six times in total, but “only” four times in row.
“This is for sure the biggest moment so far of my career,” said Soderling in his post-match interview.
“My strategy was to play aggressive. You can’t really try to beat him in running him down.
“I had to take some chances. I think I did, and, you know, I played extremely well on the important points.
”I returned well, and I didn’t miss a lot. I tried to work my game with my forehand, make him move…I think I played exactly the way I wanted to play for the match.”
Nadal admitted he didn’t play his best tennis but accepts his loss.
“When you lose, always everybody starts to analyze if I play too much, if I’m tired. I won four years in a row playing the same. That’s the truth. This year I play the same and I lost. What happened? I lost. That’s it,” said Nadal.
Ivanovic Gone
While Nadal and Soderling were dueling on the Phillippe Chatrier court, Ana Ivanovic, ranked eighth in the world and the defending champion, lost her match against ninth-ranked Victoria Azarenka from Belarus.
After having been injured several times, Ivanovic hasn’t reached last year’s level yet. Azarenka has won three tournaments this year, of which the victory against Serena Williams in Miami was most notable.
Sunday was a memorable day at Roland Garros. Within a span of less than one hour, the French Open lost both its defending champions, leaving the door wide open for new champions this year.
