By winning the French Open in each of the past four editions of the Grand Slam, Rafael Nadal was the heavy favorite to win at Roland Garros in 2009 as well. Nadal didn’t face any difficulty, breezing into the fourth round without dropping a single set. However, Robin Soderling would play the match of his life and orchestrate an extreme shock by stunning the Spaniard in the pre-quarterfinal stage.
Soderling took the tennis world by surprise with a dominant performance that led to a 6-2, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 win over the #1 seed of the tournament. More than 15 years after the contest took place, Soderling’s then-coach revealed the masterplan that they had devised to defeat the ‘King of Clay’.
During an appearance on Tennis Channel’s latest ‘Inside-In Podcast’ episode, Magnus Norman first recollected the memory of Soderling being livid after suffering a humiliating 1-6, 0-6 loss to Rafa in the Italian Open 2009.
Instead of feeling dejected, the two started discussing Soderling’s strategy for a future match against Nadal. This same conversation went on until late in the night.
“I remember me and Robin staying up very late that night, we were in the gym at the hotel until maybe 1 AM in the morning talking about the match and we were doing a workout after the match robin was obviously very angry with the match. But I felt like there were some things in that match that I felt was not too far off. It could have been a closer match. So we took those things with us into the match at Roland Garros,” Norman revealed.
The plan was simple. Norman wanted his pupil to play an aggressive style of tennis, striking the ball hard. He also instilled belief in the Swedish star, claiming that he could go on to win the match if he approached every set individually.
“It was very important to be the one that was striking the ball first… If you can win one set against Nadal, maybe you can win two, and perhaps there is a possibility to win three. No one believed in it but he did it and it was a remarkable performance,” Norman concluded.
Despite clinching the biggest win of his career on May 31, 2009, Soderling was unable to capitalize as he suffered a tough loss in the finals merely a week later.
Soderling lost both his finals at Roland Garros
Robin Soderling followed his incredible outing against Rafael Nadal with impressive performances against Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Gonzalez to reach the finals of the major tournament. A lackluster performance in the finals resulted in Soderling sustaining a 1-6, 6-7, 4-6 loss against Roger Federer.
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Soderling seemed to have the best 12-month stretch of his career as he also made it to the finals of the French Open 2010. This time, the Tibro native was facing Rafael Nadal in the ultimate contest of the event.
There was a large group of tennis enthusiasts backing the Swedish star to upset the Mallorca native for the second straight year. However, Nadal got redemption by clinching a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory.
