Robin Soderling breezes past Diego Junqueira into the quarterfinal – SkiStar Swedish Open 2011
Looking to reclaim his title, 2009 champion and last year’s finalist Robin Soderling made a flamboyant entrance in the second round of the 2011 Swedish Open. The top seeded Swede had earlier received a bye to the second round.
Delighting the crowds gathered at Bastad, Soderling swiftly doused Argentinean Diego Junqueira with a two set 6-0, 6-1 victory in a mere forty seven minutes.
Soderling now joins Tomas Berdych and Potito Starace, who also won their Wednesday matches, in the quarter finals of the tournament. This will be his sixth consecutive quarter final. Soderling remains the home favourite; with wild
card Michael Ryderstedt the only other Swede in competition. This win improves Soderling’s season record to an impressive 35-9.
Soderling registered three serve breaks in the opening set, firing a volley of accurate serves to devastate his opponent. Sporting an accuracy of 87% Soderling won 10 of the 13 serve points while Junqueira managed only a measly
two. The humbled Junqueira was unable to save even one of the three opportunities he had to save breakpoints. The set ended with Soderling conceding only 7 points to his opponent and the set ended at 6-0. Junqueira had been unable to win even a single game.
Soderling continued firing at his opponent in the second set and bagged two professionally executed aces. Junqueira clobbered a surprising break when he was trailing Soderling 2-0 into the set. This was the only game dropped by
Soderling, who rallied past Junqueira in the last four games. Other than the breakpoint lost initially, Soderling managed to recover three breakpoints and grabbed 9 points off his 12 serves.
The second set ended 6-1 in Soderling’s favour with Junqueira actually stumbling through the entire match without holding a single serve. However, Junqueira’s effort was visible in his markedly improved serves, in the second set
he was able to land 93% of his serves but the fact remained that he was unable to win points off them.
Overall Soderling accumulated 26 service points, 25 return points for a total of 51 points. Junqueira’s 7 service points and 9 return points added up to a meagre 16 points.
Soderling’s effortless win lands him in Friday’s quarterfinal, where he’ll have to battle past eighth seed Italian Potito Starace. Starace had earlier that day battled ahead of the qualifier from France, Dasnieres de Veigy.
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