Preview: Robin Soderling vs. Leonardo Mayer – French Open 2011
Swede hopes are high in the French Open, as world number five, Robin Soderling, takes on the Argentine qualifier, Leonardo Mayer, in the third round encounter on Saturday. The contest will be held at the Court Suzanne Lenglen in
Paris, France, and the winner of the two will move in to the final 16 of the tournament.
Fifth seeded Soderling has been in great form this season and has already won three ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) championship titles in the running year.
A two time finalist here the Swede is in his eighth run here. He devastated the Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, in the second round of the event to meet Mayer in the third. Soderling took down the
lucky loser from the United States, Ryan Harrison, in the opening round to begin his Roland Garros campaign. He dropped the second set to the American but reeled the following two sets to carry on his brilliant run in the Grand Slam event.
On the other hand, Mayer produced an upset victory in the second round of the tournament as he defeated the 27th seed, Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in straight sets 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(6), to book a date with Soderling in the
next round. The Argentine will be very confident for taking on the Swede opponent in the third round after his emphatic victory over Baghdatis.
The two men have already met once in singles encounter last year at in the Fed Cup event, when Soderling stood victorious against the Argentine after a tough contest in straight sets 7-5, 7-6(5), 7-5. Mayer has this golden opportunity
at the French Open to payback Soderling and level their head-to-head record.
To pundits everywhere it looks quite obvious that the world number five, Soderling will take down 217th ranked Mayer with utmost ease in the third round matchup but the abilities of the Argentine are not to be underestimated.
Mayer has defeated the hot favourite Baghdatis in straight sets in his most recent encounter and will certainly desire to replicate his feat against Soderling as well.
Soderling has won 28 of his 35 matches this year, including three championship titles as well. Mayer will need to come up with something very special to defeat the in-form Soderling and keep moving ahead in his French Open voyage.
He has merely won two matches in the running ATP season so far and it appears that the lack of playing professional tennis might prove much taxing for Mayer against an accomplished player like Soderling.
The Swede reached the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open without dropping a single set in all of his matches and he will be pretty confident to repeat the same journey at the second Grand Slam tournament of the season
as well. Although Mayer has defeated Baghdatis in straight sets, he had to labour very hard to take down the 27th seeded player and surely Soderling is a far better and accomplished player than the Cyprian. The Swede should have no trouble in disposing
of Mayer in the third round battle.
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