A roar erupted from the fans inside Court Philippe Chatrier when the scoreboard confirmed Gael Monfils’ win on Court Suzanne Lenglen, but streak silencer Robin Soderling soon pressed the mute button on Gilles Simon and the French faithful. The two-time French Open finalist stormed through the first two sets, then survived a late stumble to send Simon packing, 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 (5). The fifth-seeded Swede is the only man to beat Rafael Nadal at the Roland Garros, and the two will square off for the third consecutive year in Paris, with a semifinal spot on the line.
The 6’ 4” Soderling is not your classic clay-courter. He doesn’t construct points as much as he deconstructs them, swinging with the force of a demolition expert detonating baseline blasts. It’s a style that has produced explosive upsets the last two years; Soderling snapped Nadal’s 31-match French Open winning streak in 2009 and overwhelmed Roger Federer in the 2010 quarterfinals, stopping the defending champion’s record run of 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals.
Soderling has surrendered just one set in four matches—the second set of his first-round win over American lucky loser Ryan Harrison—and showed shrewd shot selection today against Simon. The Swede outweighs the slender Frenchman by nearly 40 pounds, but rather than relying on his immense power in resorting to grip-and-rip tennis, he played high-percentage, cross-court drives, drawing the inevitable short ball before pounding clean winners with the conviction of a man slamming shut the trunk of his car.
Simon opened the match with an ace, but Soderling won 16 of the next 18 points to surge out to a 4-0 lead. Slashing an inside-out forehand winner for a second set point, Soderling hit a service winner to seal the set in 31 minutes. Simon can also hit service winners—he owns a sneaky-fast first serve—but his second delivery offered little deception. Soderling broke twice in succession, the second with a bullet backhand up the line, to collect the second set.
The insular Simon is not as expressive as Monfils, nor does he engage the home crowd like his countryman. Throughout much of the first two sets, Simon spent time between points snarling at himself, frustrated because he couldn’t dent his bigger-hitting opponent’s defenses. The match appeared to be a mismatch when Soderling went up 4-1 in the third, but the fifth seed took treatment for blisters on his racquet hand during the changeover and his level dipped when play resumed.
A stubborn Simon saved three match points to force a tiebreaker, only to see Soderling slam a 136 mph ace as Simon whiffed on the return. It gave Soderling four more match points, and though Simon would save three of them, the Swede snapped off a backhand down the line to end it, screaming with such emotion that the veins on his neck were visibly bulging, while his eyes now look ahead to another match with reigning champion Nadal.
—Richard Pagliaro