Roland Garros French Open 2010 Final Preview - Nadal vs. Soderling

No. 2 Rafael Nadal (ESP) vs. No. 5 Robin Soderling (SWE)

Rafael Nadal will look to both win his fifth Roland Garros title and reclaim the No. 1 spot in the South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings when he faces Robin Soderling, the only player ever to beat Nadal on the clay in Paris, in Sunday’s final. Soderling, through to the Roland Garros final for the second straight year, has already ousted World No. 1 Roger Federer en route to his second major final and will look to win his first Grand Slam trophy.

Head-To-Head

Soderling has won the past two matches against Nadal, including in the round of 16 at Roland Garros last year, which ended the Spaniard’s 31-match winning streak in Paris. That is Nadal’s lone loss at Roland Garros (37-1) and the only time he has lost a best-of-five sets match on clay (55-1).

        Soderling    Nadal
Aces    75    12
Double Faults    25    7
1st Serve %    64%    74%
1st Serve Points     77%    72%
2nd Serve Points     58%    55%
Broken    11    11
Break Points Faced     36    35
Games Served     100    86
Fastest Serve     142mph    126mph
         
1st Return Points Won     35%    40%
2nd Return Points Won     53%    59%
Breaks of Serve     34    34
Break Points     70    63
Pct. Converted     49%    54%
Return Games Played     98    84
         
Forehand Winners     101    106
Forehand Unforced Errors     98    81
Backhand Winners     54    33
Backhand Unforced Errors     88    54
         
Winners    260    179
Unforced Errors     216    146
         
Net Points Played     119    101
Net Points Won     61%    70%
         
Games W-L     123-75    112-61
Sets W-L     18-4    18-0




RANKINGS UPDATE – If Nadal captures his fifth Roland Garros title in five years, he will also return to No. 1 in the South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings. If he fails to win the title, Roger Federer will retain the top spot and will also hold the position until Wimbledon, therefore surpassing Pete Sampras’s record of 286 weeks at No. 1 on June 14. Nadal last ranked No. 1 the week of June 29, 2009 after holding the top spot for 46 consecutive weeks. Soderling is guaranteed to attain a career-high ranking after Roland Garros, reaching No. 4 if he wins the title and No. 6 if he finishes runner-up.

Streak Stopper Super Swede Soda

Many Felt Soda head best times are over with 2009, and that GS streak was just an one-time wonder, but now he is making it a habit to stop significance Tennis streaks to an end.

Last year at the same tournament he ended Nadal's RG streak and now he stopped RF's semi streak from growing numbers.

Semi-final match against Tommy Berdych will be tough, Tommy has a better game than Soder but his consistency is questionable, but given the form of Soderling I back him to make the finals but no case it would be an easy task if Tommy hits his purple patch.

I badly miss Del Potro's game this year, I would have personally loved to watch in form DelBoy vs current Soder in the humid and heavy conditions.

Will there be any more upset?, I guess Melzer can do it, however may not do it.

Wish you all the best RS, now go and prove that you can win a GS.

Queens 2010 Draw out

Although there is still one match still to play at roland garos, the attention slightly turns as the grass court season begins in a couple of days. The draw for queens has been released today with a few familiar and a few new names.

Starting at the top, 2008 champion Rafael Nadal begins his campaign against either Brazilian Marcos Daniel (H2H 1-0) or Slovenian Blaz Kavcic. Nadals next opponent could be Wild card Jamie baker who faces Dennis istomin in the first round. Nadal`s other possible third round opponent is either Jamaican Dustin brown or a qualifier. In the quarter finals he could come up against tricky opponents such as feliciano lopez, Julien Benneateau or Arnaud clement.

In the second quarter of the draw, defending champion Andy Murray has a fairly straight forward draw. He begins against either Crazy Dani koeller or veteran Spaniard Ivan Navarro. His third round opponent is most likely Mardy fish though he beat Fish at the same stage last year. Murray is seeded to face Marin Cilic in the quarter finals who also has a straight forward draw.


In the second half of the draw, 2nd seed and 2008 finalist Novak Djokovic begins against either lowly ranked paolo lorenzi or pere riba. Potential third round opponents are Bernard tomic, Seppi or 2002 Wimbledon semi finalist Xavier malisse. Quarter final opponents for nole include Querrey, ginepri or tipsarevic.

4 time champ And roddick starts against ilya marchenko or igor kunitsyn. Afterwards he could come up against gilles muller or dudi sela with potential quarter finalist being monfils and Gasquet.

Seeded quarter finals-

Nadal-F.lopez

Murray-Cilic

Roddick-Monfils

Djokovic Querrey.

Notable absentees- Verdasco, tsonga and ancic through injury while Hewitt is in halle this year

Note-soderling has pulled out of halle

Increase 250's and reduce mandatory 500's

ATP says it want to make it a Global sport and popularize it all over the world, but seriously Tennis is still American Dominated sport, how man masters,500's,250's and a Slam is played in USA? should they not spread the numbers to other countries who are willing to host more 250's?

Many countries would love to host a Tennis tournament if top players like Federer ,Nadal or Murray take part in it, so wont it be a wise idea to increase the amount of mandatory 250's to 4 and reduce masters and 500's a little bit?


It might look silly to reduce the mandatory masters but if the sport has to go everywhere in the world they either have to be rotated round the countries or the numbers should be reduced to let the top players focus on other smaller tournaments.

The Fact is Federer or Nadal can still pull a huge amount of crowd to the stadium even if they dont play each other, people in Asia, Africa, South America would be more than happy to see one of these icons play there.

So my thinking let the top players square off in Slams and few masters and rest of the season they could choose some smaller tournaments all over the world and play them. In this scenario players will play more smaller tournaments where they are likely to win and most importantly get the ranking points up.

Players will again be less injury prone as they wont be stretched a lot in smaller tournaments , and these tournaments can substitute their training duration. Murray did say about this, he preferred a tournament rather than heavy training in the off-season or in-between tournaments.

Negatives -

Quantity will be increased and Quality will be decreased [ a bit like WTA] but unless the sport is spread all over the world , we cannot expect starts from other countries to shine in the American- Europe Dominated sport.