Preview: Robin Soderling vs Gilles Simon – French Open 2011
World number five, Robin Soderling of Sweden is all set to take on the local Gilles Simon in the pair’s fourth round match at the 2011 Roland Garros in Paris, France on Monday, May 30th.
An unstoppable force in the beginning of the season, Soderling started his year on the highest note ever. Top seeded at Brisbane, Soderling defeated American Andy Roddick in the title match to start the year with a bang. The Swede finished the event without dropping a single set. He continued his streak into the Grand Slam Down Under the following week all the way to the fourth round before losing to Alexandr Dolgopolov.
The Swede continued his top form after the Grand Slam as he moved on ahead to win two more titles, winning them at Rotterdam and Marseille. However, a slump in his form after forced early exits on the Swede. It was only in the Madrid and Rome Masters that Soderling bounced back making it to the quarterfinals before losing to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic respectively.
Having debuted here in 2004, it took the Swede almost half a decade before he put in back to back final appearances. However, he failed to clinch the title on both occasions. Hoping to go a step further this time around, the Swede has truly been enjoying top form this time around as he did away with lucky loser Ryan Harrison, qualifier Albert Ramos and qualifier Leonardo Mayer in the early rounds.
Apart from outranking the local by thirteen places, Soderling also holds a 4-2 lead in the pair’s career head-to-head. Their last meeting came at the 2010 BNP Paribas Masters where the Swede destroyed the local in straight sets. However, the two have never met on clay. Perhaps, the local crowd plus his natural surface might allow Simon to upset the fifth seed.
Starting his year at the Heineken Open in Auckland, Simon outplayed Viktor Troicki in the title match. However, it was all downhill from there on. Suffering early round exits in almost all of the events that followed, it wasn’t until last month that Simon upped his performance as he made quarterfinal runs at most of the Masters events.
A 2005 debutant here, Simon had never made it past the third round. Having surpassed his career best here this time around, perhaps the French can continue to ride the local support past the Swede.
Prediction: Although Simon enjoys the local crowd support, Soderling outmatches the young French on paper leading in every statistic. Should the pressure of the moment not crack the Swede, he will probably move past Simon in straight sets.
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