Not nearly the huge upset that knocked Nadal out of the French last year, this was still an amazing performance by Robin Soderling to prevent Roger from getting to his 24th consecutive semifinal at a Slam.  It didn’t end the way it started.  Roger was comfortably holding serve, then managed a break, and won the first set 6-3, and it seemed Soderling would go away quietly, letting Roger get to yet another Slam semi.

But in the second set, Federer’s mastery of his own serve started going away and Soderling started playing more aggressively.  He only had one break point in the second and third set, but converted both times.  Federer had a huge chance at the end of the third set when Soderling hit an overhead at net, set point down, and Federer hit an overhead off that overhead that was spinning in.  Soderling hit a backhand overhead into the open court to get back to deuce and eventually win the game.

In the fourth set, he had many more looks at break points and managed to break twice despite Federer breaking early at 2-0.  Federer played very well up to this point, much better than last year when he won the French, but essentially came into a buzzsaw.  Darren Cahill said it seemed very much like the del Potro US Open final from last year, and it does seem a lot like that match.  There, Federer had a comfortable lead, but del Potro gained confidence and started hitting too hard for Federer.

Although Federer played a fairly clean match, 27 unforced errors to 42 for Soderling, and other comparable stats in terms of winners and aces, Soderling just won the more important points.

Final score: 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4.

In the other quarterfinals, Berdych manhandled Youzhny despite Youzhny having a pretty good head-to-head against Youzhny.  Berdych won in straight sets 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.

Berdych will now face Soderling.  Soderling leads the head-to-head, 4-3.  Berdych won their last meeting, 6-2, 6-2, in Miami.  However, Soderling beat Berdych by the same score last year in Kuala Lumpur.  Indeed, most of their matches have been lopsided one side or the other, and they’ve only had one three setter in 2007 on clay (Monte Carlo) won by Berdych.  This is the only time the two have played on clay.

Tomorrow, Nadal will try to head to his fifth French Open playing one of two players that have taken a set off Nadal during the clay season, Nicolas Almagro.  Djokovic will take on veteran, Jurgen Melzer, hoping to be Nadal’s semifinal opponent.  Meanwhile, Roger will think about how he’ll try to win Wimbledon.