Philipp Kohlschreiber stuns Robin Soderling in BNP Paribas Open 3rd Round
Robin Soderling of Sweden, 4th seed at the BNP Paribas Open 2011, was knocked out of the tournament in a huge upset by the German Philipp Kohlschreiber. After being defeated 7-6(8), 6-4, the Swede joins a multitude of
seeds who have already exited the first Masters tournament of the year. 5th seed and World number 5 Andy Murray and 6th seed and World number 6 David Ferrer are the other World Top 10 players who have been knocked out of the event.
Soderling is currently the 4th best player in the world. The 26 year old has only lost one match this year, and that was at the Australian Open. He has won 3 titles already, the most recent one coming at Marseille. With
a win-loss record of 18-1 so far this season, the Scandinavian is playing some of the best tennis of his career.
Philipp Kohlschreiber is ranked 35th in the World according to the South African Airways ATP World rankings. His win-loss record this year has been 7-6. The 27-year-old played against Soderling just recently. At the
Rotterdam Open, the Swede defeated the German in a well-contested three setter.
As impeccable as Soderling’s form has been so far, this tournament did not start well for him. In his first match against Michael Berrer of Germany, he was sluggish and clearly not at his best. Despite being over in straight sets,
the match was not the display of dominance we’ve grown so used to seeing from the 26-year-old this year.
Likewise, this match started off slowly for the World number 4. Kohlschreiber kept up the pressure delivering 58 per cent of his first serves accurately. He was also good at converting said serves into points, as he ended up winning
73 per cent of the points on which he served only once. Soderling is quite tall, and that helps his serving immensely. He utilized that well to keep 66 per cent of his first serves in, but was not as good as his opponent in turning them into points, converting
only 64 per cent. This made him a little vulnerable from the get-go, and he ended up giving 7 break points to Kohlschreiber. The German converted 2 of the opportunities, but unfortunately, failed to consolidate on either. With two breaks each, the players
went into tie-break. A long battle raged here too, but a minibreak finally went the German’s way, and he held to take the set.
The second set was similarly tough. Fighting to progress, Soderling was superb on serve. He delivered 81 per cent of his first serves correctly and converted 73 per cent of those into points. His opponent only managed a sad 38
per cent correct first serves, but he only gave away an amazing 4 points on serve. Soderling only faced one break point in the match, and that was where Kohlschreiber pounced to wrap up the match.
After this huge upset, the clinical German will look to face Juan Martin Del Potro in the next round. The Argentine is red-hot on his return, and as a former world number 4, will be a challenge as great as Soderling for Kohlschreiber.
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