It’s hard to say how well Robin Soderling is playing. He started the year really well with his new coach Claudio Pistolesi. He won Brisbane, then Rotterdam, then Marseille. Since then, he hasn’t fared nearly as well, though two losses come at the hands of Juan Martin del Potro who is still trying to regain his top ten rank but has lately been derailed by injury.

Soderling recently broke up with Pistolesi, and much like Andy Murray, he is trying to find a coach, and has some hodgepodge set up. Reaching the quarterfinals is not such a bad result, but was he expected to put much of a fight against Novak Djokovic? Maybe it doesn’t even matter. Djokovic is playing so well now, it’s arguable whether anyone can pose a challenge.

The two played a modestly close 6-3 set before Djokovic turned on the afterburners and bageled him in the second set as if he were some second-tier player.

Meanwhile, Richard Gasquet has become this week’s Thomaz Bellucci. He took the upset of Roger Federer with the similar defeat of Tomas Berdych, much as Bellucci had also eliminated Berdych last week in Madrid.

Gasquet needed three sets to accomplish the task, and for his reward, he gets to play Rafael Nadal, whose easy win over Marin Cilic guaranteed him the top rank in the world, at least, through the French Open, regardless of what Djokovic does.

Speaking of Djokovic, Andy Murray plays him next. Murray was pretty close to hapless when he faced him in Melbourne. However, Murray had faced the “new” Djokovic without much lead time, and so he was unable to turn his fierce tennis intelligence to the problem of Djokovic.

If anyone is able to solve the problem of Djokovic, or at least, make an interesting impression, it may be Andy Murray. It was his two defeats of Novak Djokovic back in 2008 that signaled his ascendancy to the top 5 of the world. Alas, most people, including me, think he won’t be able to get it right on the first try. After all, he’s had plenty of opportunities to beat Nadal and although he gets close, he hasn’t found a consistent way to do it.

Murray made his way to the semifinals by beating Florian Mayer. The two had never played before, and his flat style and two-handed slice had Murray down 6-1 before he recovered and took two 6-1 sets himself. With this semifinal berth, Murray has had his best clay summer ever, making two semis in one summer. Can he take it further and reach a final and derail the Djokovic express?

This tournament ends much like Rome, with 3 of the top 4 players in the semifinals. The top two, Rafa and Novak, are there, but this tournament, it’s Murray instead of Federer.

It should make for an exciting times!