After two weeks of play and 126 matches, it comes down to one match. One match to decide who the 2009 champion of Roland Garros will be.
For the first time in quite a few years, the finals will not feature the Spaniard, Rafael Nadal. Nadal lost to one of the finalists, Robin Soderling. And for once, if Roger Federer should lose, it won’t be to Rafael Nadal.
Soderling was a completely unexpected finalist. There was a thought that someone like Fernando Verdasco might make it to the final. But he ran into Nikolay Davydenko. Davydenko completely diffused Verdasco’s power. Indeed, it was such a convincing victory that no one expected Soderling to come back and easily defeat Davydenko.
Gonzalez beat the other potential finalist, Andy Murray. OK, Andy Murray wasn’t really expected to be a finalist, but impressively enough, he lasted to the quarterfinals which was further than Nadal survived.
So who’s going to win?
If you were to base it on head-to-head matchup, you’d have to give it to Federer. Soderling has never defeated Federer in 9 tries. Of course, del Potro hadn’t beaten Federer in 5 tries, had never even taken a set off Federer, and yet was poised to take a match where he was 2 sets to 1 up on the former world number 1.
What does Soderling have working for him? He serves big. This is key. del Potro’s big serve gave Federer fits in the first three sets, as did his big swipes off the ground.
Soderling has big groundstrokes. They confounded Davydenko, and gave Gonzalez a tough time. There’s no doubt Soderling will be able to pressure Federer some off the ground. However Monfils pressured Roddick off the ground, and yet Federer handled Monfils rather easily.
Soderling is calm. OK, this is his first Grand Slam final, and surely this is the kind of pressure he’s never faced. But he’s dealt with the pressure of Davis Cup. He had to deal with the pressure of beating Nadal. He was 4-1 down to Gonzalez in his first ever Grand Slam semifinals and came back against that. Soderling is pretty calm for a guy in such a big occasion. That will probably be his greatest asset.
What does Federer have going for him? Federer takes big swipes at the ball. He tries to apply pressure quickly and often. He’s rarely content having a long relaxing rally. This often leads to many errors, but if Federer is on top of his game, he can quickly apply pressure to his opponent forcing them to run around.
So here’s the deal. It seems like del Potro is able to do everything Soderling can do, and better, and Federer handled del Potro. One could argue that del Potro fatigued in the latter parts of the match, but Soderling also began to produce more errors as the match went along as well.
Key to a victory by Roger will be getting to a fast start and serving well. If he does both, he can easily win this. However, Roger has struggled more than usual this go around. To be fair, his opponents do seem to be playing well, and it’s not as if Roger has played awful. He’s just not playing sublime. It did look like Federer was well in control of the del Potro match in the fifth set.
Can Soderling keep things interesting? Sure. He has the serve, the power off the ground, to make it interesting. However, Federer would also have to be playing quite off, and he’s likely to be feeling pretty confident. Again, the key to the match is whether he gets to a quick start.
If so, Roger may be on the verge of completing a career Grand Slam. Other than those that have completed the Grand Slam, the only other players to complete the career Grand Slam were Andre Agassi and Roy Emerson. Pete Sampras, in his 14 titles, never reached the finals of the French, and only reached the semifinals of the French once.
After three years of being a finalist at the French, is Roger ready to finally take the one title that has eluded him?
Watch the match Sunday and find out!