Soderling v Berdych Roland Garros semi-final preview
There’s an almost unrecognisable appearance to the men’s semi-final line-up at the French Open this year, and the man responsible for that fact is Robin Soderling.
For 23 consecutive Grand Slams, Roger Federer’s name had without fail been listed among the final four of the tournament. On 20 of those occasions the world No. 1 stepped onto centre court in the final.
Then, the unthinkable. Soderling, who had dispatched 2008 champion Rafael Nadal in the fourth round last year, ended the hopes of another defending champion this year with his defeat of Federer in the semis.
The job, however, is far from done for the Swede, who will this year be looking to improve upon his 2009 runner-up performance in Paris. Two more wins will do it, and the first of them will need to come in his semi-final match against Tomas Berdych.
The Czech will be playing in his first Grand Slam semi-final when he takes on Soderling at Roland Garros, but has arrived there without dropping a set, and that includes a fourth-round victory over fourth seed Andy Murray.
Berdych, who defeated 11th seed Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets in his quarter-final match, however, wasn’t about to buy into the notion that he’s been playing the best tennis of his career at the clay-court Grand Slam.
“It's tough to say, because I hope not,” Berdych told reporters when asked the question after his victory over Youzhny. “I hope that I can still bring something more and I can, you know, keep it for long periods of time.”
The 24-year-old did admit, however to dialling down his out-and-out aggression to his ground strokes as he sought to improve his game this year, the powerful baseliner saying: “I was kind of guy who just liked to play really aggressive, but sometimes I was maybe too much, you know, just go too much for every shot. Then you just come with the mistakes, and that's not the way of the modern tennis. I still need to play really aggressive but with more control, and, you know, be a little bit patient on the court.”
It’s an approach that has paid dividends for the 15th seed so far in the French Open, but it’s even more difficult to resist the form of Soderling heading into this match.
The fifth seed made amends for his straight-sets defeat by Federer in last year’s Roland Garros final as he unleashed a barrage of almighty ground strokes at the top seed to power past him and into the final four for the second consecutive year. That victory followed a straight-sets victory over 10th seed Marin Cilic in the fourth round, and a four set defeat of clay court specialist Albert Montanes in the round of 32.
Soderling will take a 4-3 winning advantage over Berdych into this match, with the Czech easily winning their most recent match in the semi-finals of the Miami Masters 1000 6-2, 6-2.
Reminded of that scoreline in his post-match press conference yesterday, Soderling – perhaps mindful of the fact he’d just ended a 12-match losing streak against Federer - responded: “Every match is a new match, and he [Berdych] played great this year. He's a dangerous player when he's playing good.
So of course it can happen, but I'm expecting a tough match.”
Looking ahead to the semi-final, however, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that if Federer failed to withstand the ferocity of Soderling’s ground strokes on the Roland Garros clay, Berdych, even in his current form, has little chance of mounting a successful resistance.
Prediction: Soderling in straight sets.
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