A shower of sparklers followed by a spray of silver-and-green streamers seemed to surprise Robin Soderling as he received the champion's trophy from tournament director Richard Krajicek following his 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the Rotterdam final.
It was a fitting finale for Soderling, who spent much of the match unleashing his own brand of baseline power pyrotechnics. The top-seeded Swede successfully defended a title for the first time in stretching his Rotterdam win streak to 10 matches.
During his run, Soderling played the shortest and one of the longest matches of the tournament—he dominated Dutch wild card Robin Haase in the first round, 6-3, 6-2, in 52 minutes, and fought off a match point in subduing Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round, 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7), in two hours and 22 minutes. Today's win came in at at one hour, 23 minutes, but one trait was constant: Soderling's skill for timely shot making.
Serving at 2-all, 30-all in the final set, Soderling shrewdly sliced his serve wide in the ad side and followed with a forehand winner crosscourt. The lanky Swede held for 3-2 with a lunging stab drop volley winner.
After Tsonga thundered three aces to hold for 3-all, Soderling, who isn't known for his nimbleness around net, showed soft hands with a brilliant half volley drop shot winner. The Swede slammed an ace wide to hold for 4-3. The eighth-seeded Frenchman continued to ace, finishing with 20 in all, but missed the mark on several first serves in the eighth game to face double break point. When Tsonga steered an inside-out forehand wide, Soderling had the decisive break.
A service winner brought Soderling to double championship point, and he sealed his eighth career title in style slamming his 12th ace down the T. The win ensures he will retain the world No. 4 rank ahead of Andy Murray, who suffered a 6-4, 6-1 first-round loss to Marcos Baghdatis, when the new ATP rankings are released tomorrow.
Six weeks into the new season, Soderling has taken significant steps in responding to a coaching change. Fellow Swede Magnus Norman, who guided Soderling to successive French Open finals, stepped down as coach at the end of the 2010 season. Veteran Italian technician Claudio Pistolesi has taken over and tried to encourage Soderling to take better advantage of his seismic groundstrokes by, on occasion, finishing at net. Soderling has responded by winning two of the three tournaments he's contested (he started the season beating Andy Roddick to win Brisbane) and has registered a 13-1 record; his lone loss came against Alexandr Dolgopolov in five sets at last month's Australian Open.
Nearly 16 months removed from his last tournament title at the 2009 Tokyo event, former Australian Open finalist Tsonga had lost six straight sets to Soderling before breaking through in the second set today. When he did, the Frenchman waved his Babolat racquet in the air in celebration.
—Richard Pagliaro