Robin Soderling has announced that he is to be a father. Robin and wife Jenni are expecting their first child together in September.
Soderling took to Twitter to make the announcement: Hi everyone. I have the best news. Jenni an I are becoming parents in late September. We are both very happy and excited
Daniela Hantuchova has hired Claudio Pistolesi as her new coach. Claudio Pistolesi has coached the likes of Robin Soderling, Monica Seles and Ai Sugiyama. It will be interesting to see if he can help Hantuchova. The pair have decided to have a three tournament trial period to see if the partnership can work.
There have been a lot of amazing match comebacks in 2011, so we thought we would put together our best comebacks of 2011 list.
Robin Soderling vs Lleyton Hewitt, 6-7(5), 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4, Wimbledon 2nd RD
Andy Murray vs Viktor Troicki, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, Roland Garros 4th RD
Ivan Dodig vs Rafael Nadal, 1-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(5), Montreal 2nd RD
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Roger Federer, 3-6, 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, Wimbledon QF
Novak Djokovic vs Roger Federer, 6-7(7), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, US Open SF
Robin Soderling has announced he will not be playing the Australian Open 2012. Soderling has had a really tough time recovering from illness which saw him withdraw from the US Open.
On his Twitter account: “I am very sorry for being away for so long and for not giving many updates but my recovery has been longer than expected. I am feeling better with each day but it will still take some time before I can start practising in full speed. My goal is to start with practice in January and I hope for tournament comeback in February but at this stage it is hard to know when and where. I hope my body will allow me to do that. “
Here is a little clip from the 2010 ATP year end finals in London. I love it when they ask players funny and embarrassing questions.. makes them a little bit more human and you can relate.
The injury list for the US Open is growing by the day, so it is going to be a very interesting tournament. The only top male player not on the list is Roger Federer.
Womens injuries so far:
Robin Soderling tries his hand at painting, tennis style. Robin Soderling and Ernst Billgren created a sculpture for the Non-Violence Tour. The sculpture was later unveiled at the opening ceremony of the Swedish Open in Bastad.
Former world number one Andy Roddick has withdrawn from the Rogers Cup which is also known as the Montreal Masters. Andy has cited that he has an injured oblique muscle, making it the second week in a row that Roddick withdrew from an event. Roddick has been bothered by injuries over the past two years, and was forced to pull out of Roland Garros about two months ago with a shoulder injury.
A local Montreal newspaper also reported that world number five Robin Soderling has also withdrawn from the event with a wrist injury. Among others who have opted out of the tournament include Jurgen Melzer (quad), and Xavier Malisse (personal).
After losing in the 3rd round of Wimbledon to Feliciano Lopez and then playing Davis Cup, Roddick has not played since and was forced to withdraw from this week’s tournament in Washington. Luckily, he hasn’t got any points to defend at Montreal since he has also pulled out from from the tournament last year. He should be able to compete at the Cincinnati event the week after Montreal and has sent a message about his return on Twitter: ”Hopefully I’ll be ready for cincy in 10 days or so…. Fingers crossed.” Let’s hope Andy will make it to the Cincy event since he does have 360 semifinal points to defend there, and also will make an appearance at the new tournament in Winston-Salem, NC just before the last Grand Slam of the year (US Open).
Well, it is a pity that some of the best players in the world have cancelled their appearance at Montreal but there are still plenty more great players who should make up for it.
Mens Singles:
Today was a class of titans. Rafael Nadal was taking on Robin Soderling and Andy Murray to play Juan Ignacio Chela. Murray was up first and performed very well with a straight sets win over Chela 7-6 7-5 6-2. Murray seemed to over come his ankle injury to keep his brilliant run on clay alive.
In the other match of the day Rafael Nadal was the center of attention as he pummeled Robin Soderling 6-4 6-1 7-6. Nadal played so well that there was no real point where I actually thought he was going to lose a set.
Womens Singles:
Maria Sharapova turned up to play today and she killed Andrea Petkovic 6-0 6-3. While Na Li continued her amaazing return with a strong 7-5 6-2 win over Victoria Azarenka.
Today is going to be out last round up as you will be able to see all the results from millions of news sources from around the world.
Mens Singles:
A lot happened today in the mens singles. First of all in the key matches with the top players both Nadal, Soderling and Murray advanced quite easily. However, there were a few upsets! Marcos Baghdatis (27) was defeated by Leonardo Mayer in straight sets, Florian Mayer was defeated by Alejandro Falla in four sets, Nikolay Davydenko (28) was defeated by Antonio Veic in a tuogh five set match, and Sam Querrey (24) was defeated by Ivan Ljubicic in straight sets.
The dark horse seems to be Lukasz Kubot who progressed again with a straight sets win over Carlos Berlocq. Kubot has come through some tough matches in qualifying and has already taken out Nicolas Almagro (11) and Carlos Berlocq in the main draw, with both of these players being clay court specialists.
Womens Singles:
Match of the day for me was Maria Sharapova (7) against young French lady Caroline Garcia. Garia was playing some amazing tennis and was making Sharapova look like your average hacker. Garcia was up 6-3 4-1, but then she seemed to remember that she was playing on center court at the French Open against Maria Sharapova. After that she didnt win another game and Sharapova won 3-6 6-4 6-0.
Apart from that all seeds that played today pushed into the next round, apart from Alexandra Dulgheru (27) who lost to Sorana Cirstea 6-2 7-5.
Mens Doubles:
Michael Llodra and Nenad Zimoniic (4) played some great tennis today and defeated Igor Kunitsyn and Ivan Ljubicic. Watch out for these guys in the tournament!
Womens Doubles:
Casey Dellacqua and Rennae Stubbs are an unseeded team to watch in the womens doubles. They just defeated Kimiko Date-Krumm and Shuai Zhang 6-1 7-6.
Mens Singles:
Day 3 was an amazing day. Day 3 saw Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray in action amoung other great players.
Nadal came up against John Isner, who has an amazingly big serve. It was expected that Nadal would dominate the match and just simply be too strong on the clay. However, Isner was playing his A-game and Nadal was quick lucky to win in five very tough sets. 6-4 6-7 6-7 6-2 6-4.
In the rest of the matches most of the seeds got through without any trouble at all. However, Nicolas Almagro (11) was not so lucky as he fell to Lukasz Kubot in five sets. 3-6 2-6 7-6 7-6 6-4.
For me the pick of the matches was between two of the older guys on tour, Dmitry Tursunov and Xavier Malisse. These guys were roughing it on court 17 and they gave the crowd something to talk about. The match lasted three hours and saw Xavier Malisse progress 6-1 in the fifth set.
Womens Singles:
In day 3 on the womens side everything seemed to go very well for all the seed. The only seed that didnt make it through was Ana Ivanovic (whats news). Ana seemed to be playing strong tennis as she lost the first set 7-6 and then won the second set 6-0. However, as Ana isnt really predictable, she then went on to lose the third set 6-2.
For me the match of the day was Patty Schnyder and Sorana Cirstea. This was expected to be a very close match between two good players who both were not seeded. However, it seemed like Patty didnt really turn up for the match and Cirstea steam rolled her 6-1 6-3.
Overall:
Rafael Nadal has a tough match and progressed, this could set him up nicely for a good campaign here! In the other matches Andy Murray played very well, but he tends to run out of steam in the second week of Grand Slams. Outsiders are Robin Soderling and Gilles Simon, both played very well today.
Kim Clijsters has to be the favourite for this title and she didn’t disappoint today. Surprisingly Maria Sharapova is playing some great tennis at the moment and I could see he going quite deep in this tournament.
Alexandr Dolgopolov has produced the result of the Australian Open so far. Dolgopolov put out Robin Soderling is a brilliant five set match, 1-6 6-3 6-1 4-6 6-2. Dolgopolov will now face Andy Murray in the quarter finals.
I remember watch Dolgopolov play at the Wimbledon junior even a few years ago and I cant believe how much he has improved!
Roger Federer is one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and I find it very interesting that when he loses a match before the finals of any Grand Slam the press say he is past it!
A lot of the press have been slating Roger after his loss to Robin Soderling at the French Open, but I find that he doesnt really get enough credit for his consistency and what he has already been able to achieve.
Rogers statement after his Robin Soderling loss:
Q. You have, of course, the great semifinal streak that is now broken. What does that mean to you? Obviously all good things come to an end at some point.
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, like you say, they all come to an end at some stage. You hope they don’t happen, but they do.No, I mean, it was a great run. Now I’ve got the quarterfinal streak going, I guess. (laughter.)No, I mean, it’s been an amazing run. I think it sort of started here when I lost to Kuerten back in ‘04, I guess it is. If then I could have signed for all those semis in a row, I would have done it right away. I’ve made, how you say, incredible progress in terms of my play at the highest of level to be able to always come back and play semis after semis after semis in Slams and give myself chances to win in Slams. I was able to win many of them.
I was proud to have that streak, and it’s probably one of the greatest ones I have in my, you know, history books, really, for me.
It great to see Roger is staying positive and just trying to play every match as it comes.
It was great to see yesterday Robin Soderling turn around his result from last year and defeat Roger Federer in 4 sets. The score was 3-6 6-3 7-5 6-4. What a great result for Soderling! Now he plays Tomas Berdych in the semifinals.
Three time Roland Garros finalist Roger Federer has captured his first French Open title. Roger defeated Robin Soderling 6-1 7-6 6-4 in todays final. Federer has now equaled Pete Sampras with the most Grand Slam titles. Federer has won his 14th Grand Slam title in his 40th career Slam tournament. Pete Sampras, at 31, captured his record 14th Slam title in his 52nd career tournament.
Federer has become the sixth man to win all four Grand Slam titles in his career, the first since Andre Agassi in 1999. Here are the members of the Grand Slam Club (with year of tournament) — Fred Perry (1935 Roland Garros), Don Budge (1938 Roland Garros), Rod Laver (1962 US Open), Roy Emerson (1964 Wimbledon) and Agassi (1999 Roland Garros). Budge won a calendar Grand Slam in 1938 and Laver in 1962 and ’69.
Robin Soderling (23) vs Nikolay Davydenko (10) = This is going to be a great match. Robin Soderling beat four time reigning champion Rafael Nadal in four sets in the previous round and Davydenko defeated Fernando Verdasco in straight sets. I think Robin will be still on a high from his last victory, so it will be interesting to see if he can keep it going. This could be a five set match with Soderling taking the first few sets then Davydenko coming back.
Andy Murray (3) vs Fernando Gonzalez (12) = Andy and Fernando have been in great for in this tournament so far and they both didnt lose a set in their fourth round matches. Murray has had quite an easy draw so far and I think Gonzalez might actually cause a big upset in this match.
Juan Martin Del Potro (5) vs Tommy Robredo (16) = Juan Martin Del Potro has been playing some great tennis and beating good opponents so far in the tournament. However, in this match he will coming up against Tommy Robredo who has a huge amount of experience on the clay courts of Roland Garros. I can see Robredo winning this match in a long five set match.
Gael Monfils (11) vs Roger Federer (2) = This is another exciting match with Roger on the back of coming from two sets to love down to win in five, while Monfils played one of his greatest matches at the French Open defeating Andy Roddick in straight sets. I think this will be Rogers match to lose.
Dinara Safina (1) vs Victoria Azarenka (9) = Azarenka had a great previous match disposing of the defending champion Ana Ivanovic in straight sets. While Safina hasn’t put a foot wrong and has been demolishing her opponents. I think the first set is going to be very tight and Azarenka really needs to win it, cause I cant see her coming back in three sets.
Dominika Cibulkova (20) vs Maria Sharapova = This is going to be a very interesting match, Maria hasnt been in the greatest of form but she has been grinding out wins. Cibulkova has been playing some good tennis, but hasnt really played a major name at this years French Open. I can see Maria winning in another three set match.
Sorana Cirstea vs Samantha Stosur (30) = Cirstea has had a great tournament so far, especially with her win in the last match at 9-7 in the third set over Jelena Jankovic. Stosur has been going through the draw very quietly. Clay is not Stosurs best surface but she has a great kick serve for a female player and I can see her demolishing Cirstea in straight sets.
Svetlana Kuznetsova (7) vs Serena Williams (2) = The girls have a great rivalry and have played some great matches over the years. I think Serena is in great form and the quick clay surface this year is suiting her game and I cant really see Kuznetsova getting into the match from the beginning.
After yesterday when I mentioned that there was a big upset at the French Open and it was the loss of Novak Djokovic, well today has got even better. Today both defending champions have been beaten, Rafael Nadal and Ana Ivanovic.
Rafael Nadal lost in four sets to Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-2 6-7 6-4 7-6. Nadal’s hopes of becoming the first player, man or woman, to win the French Open five times in a row are gone, dashed as the scintillating Swede played the game of his life.
After 31 consecutive match wins dating back to 2005, the King of Clay lost his first-ever match at the French Open and can have no complaints after playing on the back foot virtually throughout, while the inspired No23 seed blitzed him from every corner of the court.
Ana Ivanovic had a really tough day on court today after getting a little bit of a lesson from Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. The defending womens champion was never really in the match beaten 6-2 6-3. Azarenka will now face Dinara Safina who seems to be in amazing form. Safina defeated Aravane Rezai 6-0 6-1 in less than an hour.
