Federer beats Soderling once more

Federer wins Soderling again, Soderling couldn't quite cope up with the pressure of the match, whenever Federer wanted the breaks, Soderling offered him voluntarily, like he did in the first set when they were tied at 4-4, Soderling eased the pressure off Federer's shoulder's by playing 5 unforced errors in the 9th game of the first set to let Federer lead the set 5-4 with Federer having to serve the next game, Federer raced away with 6-4 in the 1st set, otherwise the match was more or less a 'Serving Contest' as coined by Federer after the match, 

The second and third sets were certainly serving contest, the swede and the swiss were serving aces and held most of their serves comfortably, but something one can't fathom with the play of Federer yesterday was that he was not interested in taking the initiative at any part of the match, he was living on Soderling's mistakes, probably that was Federer's game plan against Soderling, he wasn't approaching the net's as much as the 12th seeded swede, Federer was very happy to play from the baseline throughout the game, maybe that was some reason to suggest Federer never could break Soderling in the 2nd and 3rd sets, it's the inability of the Swede to break led to tie-breakers in the 2nd and 3rd sets, maybe Federer was more than happy to take on the Swede in the tie-breaker, although Federer wasn't at his best in both the tie-breakers, he lost his service points to let Soderling overtake, but the Swede's inability to play under the pressure proved too costly, losing both the tie-breakers 5-7..  Federer was under pressure everytime the Swede played at the nets, but Federer pulled off some fine winners from the baseline while the Swede was at the nets, otherwise the match missed the ingeniuty of the maestro's forehand , backhand winners, he was completely defensive till the end of the match, but Soderling was maybe too attacking the Swiss's service game, he returned them too hard the ball couldn't stay in the playing area, he was returning at speeds of 100 mph, had he been a bit more clever to not play the ball too hard, with Federer relying mostly on backhand slices and defensive strokes, Soderling had a good chance of outplaying the no.2 seed, but Soderling was never able to control his strokes, along with costly misses in the two tie-breakers ended up in the favour of the Swiss Maestro, 

As Federer said Soderling made a big mistake by serving a double fault in the 3rd set tie-breaker, while Federer couldn't convert his service points very well in the tie-breakers, his service was under the hammer, while Soderling eased off everytime by returning the favour by making unforced errors, Federer was lucky in the end in both the tie-breakers, 

The Match could have been easily a four setter or a five setter had the Swede capitalized his chances in the tie-breakers by cutting down the errors.

Sometimes even when your game is quite good as your opponent, a couple of errors might be the deciding factor, yesterday Soderling had a day to forget having done all the hardwork to stay in the match, he couldn't capitalise anywhere, probably that's when experience counts, Federer has played a lot of these matches, he quite understands his position very well, with winning 10 times before, Soderling can't really complain, the maestro is too hot to handle anyday, even on a day he played his defensive brand of tennis, he was maybe clever, and a bit of pressure and luck did the job for the Maestro.

Now that we have had enough of the Soderling-Federer match, the next match is got to be a quite another serving contest, if you consider the 4th round match as serving contest, then wednesday will be the finals of the serving contest, with the 6'10" croatian serving 150 miles per hour, it doesn't matter if you are 2nd seed or the underdog, he will be quite hot to handle on grass, but the likes of Federer knows the game of Karlovic very well with a head-head record of 8-1 against the big-serving croat, Federer has the odds with him, while Karlovic has the ability to defy the odds at this point of his career beating big names of the likes of Tsonga and Fernando Verdasco of the fames of Australian Open 2008 and 2009, Tsonga being the runner up of 2008 Aus Open and Verdasco losing the close-fought semis of this year's Aus Open against Rafa, Karlovic has certainly defied the odds as did Soderling in the French Open, still the odds favour the Swiss comfortably, but one might be in for a surprise if the croatian is at his very best serving around 50 aces, and a record of not losing a game in the tournament so far, Federer has his work cut out, I hope seriously Federer comes out of his nutshell of defensive strokes and displays his varied array of strokes to outplay the one-shot genius or the King of Aces.

With Murray having fought a 4 hour marathon with the another Swiss in the tournament Stanislas Wawrinka, the odds clearly are in favour of Federer, but it's still not going to be any easier having said that Nadal is not in the tournament, just from the heat of the tournament favourites Federer and Murray, one has forgotten that Djokovic is having a very good tournament, and Federer will have to face the 22 year old Serb in the semis if they clear their hurdles in their quarters, while the classics Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt being the sole campaigners for thier nations will fight out in the quarters as well, as i said Federer has some serious work to do this week to make this year a complete year with his Wimbledon Title.

Federer Vs Soderling Rematch at Wimbledon

 

Soderling played against Federer last month in the Roland Garros Finals, Federer blew of the challenge in thin air in no time, he displayed some fine character at the end of the day at Paris, something wich he was always this close of experiencing, but something that has eluded the maestro for too long.., it was a big due in his trophies list, he played year after year but Nadal always had the last laugh at Paris, the worst part being Federer's inability to defend his Wimbledon title which he considers the most special of the grand slams.. No one could hold their tear glands if you had to lose to the same opponent in 3 different grand slams in less than year, the fact that Nadal stripped Federer off his World no.1 ranking, Federer struggling to win tournaments throughout the 2008 but still managed to fix a date at 3 of the 4 grand slam finals, atleast Federer cud defend his US Open wich he has been winning 5 years now, so he lost his winning streak at Wimbledon, but at the Flushing Meadows, he is still the king, though he is not had the best run at the Aus Open, but he finds himself at best at US Open, i jus can't find the difference between the turf at US and Aus, but Federer does find the difference, the fact that he defended it against upcoming talent Andy Murray last year, but 8 months later,  he looks very much favourite not alone in the eyes of the English Fans, but quite alot of Tennis critics, he has got the big game, but he needed to play big at the big stage wich hasn't been his forte yet, he is still young and at the learning curve, for instance Nadal came in Limelight in no time, he wasted no time to get in business as a 19yr old, he also has learnt a lot over the past 2 years, atleast he holds the key to the mystery of most of the leading tennis players, 'How to beat Roger Federer', Murray is another guy who has had the better off Federer in the last 6-7 months after losing at US Open, though Federer attributes his lose to various reasons, Murray has got absolutely the game to upset big name like ROGER FEDERER, not many of the tennis fans wud be surprised to watch that happen, its a win-win for the tennis fans, but Federer or Murray fans cud be disappointed at the end of the tournament.. At an important time of his career, Nadal has left his fans astray hoping he will come back and compete at US Open, his disability to defend his 5th French open title and inability to play at Wimbledon and the fact World No.1 Ranking hangs at the balance only worsens the cause.. but luckily Nadal is just 23 and has a whole lot of time to get back to were he cud be 'One of the greatest tennis players' wich i guess he already is, I for a moment when Rafa won at Aus Open thought Rafa is certainly going to complete a Career Grand Slam before Federer, i really didn't bet my money on Federer completing career grand slam at all, I thought Federer is gonna stay 'Pete Sampras' in being unable to win even a single Tournament at RG.. Now that RG has been done and dusted by the maestro, the debate arises , 'Is Roger Federer the Greatest Tennis Player Ever', i don really know is the answer wich Federer had to comment about that debate, he was confident though calling himself as the Best in last 5 years or 10 years, he believes he has quite dominated the game too much in the last 2-3 years, he had a quite a few questions like 'Were GrandSlams considered as big tournament as they r considered now' ..

Lets get back to business, it was a big relief the day Nadal left Roland Garros in disbelief and pain in heart twice as much as his knees, probably he wud have known the answer to his own medicine against Federer last year at Wimbledon where Nadal ended Federer's dream run wich lasted over 6years, Nadal's dream run at RG had to come to an end some day, but no ever dreamt it wud be so soon, n no one really thought he won't make it to the QFinals, absolutely shocking, even if Nadal lost at 4th Round of US Open, No one wud hv expected to b against Soderling as well, its a Shock, losing at 4th Round of French Open is really a terrible shock to tennis fans, but not for Federer fans, being runner-up for prev 3 years, Federer was the definite favourite at RG, but Federer fans cudn't take it for granted, the next day Federer knew the trophy that eluded him in the past is slipping of his hands when he was 2 sets down against Tommy Haas, and Federer was facing a break point, had he failed to save that game, Federer wud have sunk in more tears than he shed after winning the tournament, cos he knew it was his best opportunity in years, it wasn't cakewalk since then, he had to face big names like Gael Monfils at the QFinals, resurrgent Del Potro which turned out to be 5 setter as well, then at the Finals Federer played like a champion against Soderling the successor of Nadal, Soderling on the other hand had his best tournament in years after beating big names like Nadal, Gonzalez.. I believed Soderling was destined to make it big at the French Open Finals, but one can't really complain wen the maestro is at his best, he won it like a champion. Even Soderling was gracious to appreciate Federer that 'he was the greatest player ever and that he never thought u can lose 10 times against a same player'

Rematch?? Not really wud b the answer if u ask a million, the finalists of the last month's Roland Garros will meet each other at the fourth round of the Wimbledon, Soderling wud want to break his losing record against Federer who leads 10-0 against the Swede(Soderling). This is quite similar to at French Open, Soderling taking on the top seed at Roland Garros 09 and eventually winning it in a 4 setter, not to forget the Nadal-Soderling duo don't get along each other after a Soderling act of Nadal's wedgie at the Wimbledon couple of years ago, now at Wimbledon 09 he has to play the top seed Federer, at Paris, the Top seed collapsed to this swede, onl a couple of days ll answer the question of 'will it be the repeat of Roland garros, ie Soderling beating the top seed at the Fourth Round',

i believe Federer ll lose at the fourth round , i m not a quite good kind of predictor, but  i do like to predict, i predicted Federer ll lose against Tommy Haas, Gael Monfils, Del Potro and even Soderling at French Open finals 2009, lol, he has disappointed me lately,  but he shud be quite fulfilled of the fact he has pushed his name in the elite list of names from Rod Laver to Andre Agassi who had completed career grandslam.


Is Federer the greatest ever, the answer i hv to offer is 'i don't really know', but i guess he
has quite a work to do, like winning at Olympics, wich he has failed twice, and the fact that he
has dominated tennis on all courts at all levels, at if he is gonna finish his Career with tat
onl one French Open title, one can't really consider him as the best of all tennis after all, may
be years after Federer is no more playing the game n u start watching it alongwith your kids n
teach them the abt the game n talk abt the greatest tennis player ever n if ur kid ask ' so he
won onl once at French Open', that might not be the best way to consider this evergreen master,
it wud be more fulfilling to hv wins at French Open again and a Olympic Championship, also the
fact the head-to-head record against the Spain's King of Clay isn't the best to be showcast, now
that he is 7-13 against Nadal, losing twice as much as he won, gives one the feeling 'was he the
greatest ever', may be he is, but still he cud still cement himself a foot deeper as the greatest
ever to hv played the game, but one can't really say with the way these two hv progressed over
the year, back to back at French Open Finals n Wimbledon finals, there hasn't been even one
player who has played the Finals at Roland Garros n All England Club in the same year, one wud b impressed these two are in different planet, they hv quite performed this feat for 3 consecutive
years., thats quite a lot of show, they say Clay and Grass are like East and West, but for these
two gentlemen of the sport, its quite a distance, but not too far!!! and they aren't afraid of
the hard courts as well, its been 2 men show in tennis for quite sometime, they hv jus dominated
the game jus too much i guess, As Federer Suggested one shud judge his career once its over, not
while he is still playing, ya it does hav some sense, no one can guarantee Nadal will be in the
sidelines of the history of the sport... he cud well contend for being the greatest as well, but
one cant really say right now, the fact that Nadal has been Federer at 5 out of 7 grandslam
finals meeting and once at semifinals, Nadal has the upperhand against Federer at Grandslams,
Nadal has won six so far and everytime he has had to win Federer mostly at finals.. They r not
contend with either Clay or Grass, their versatility is their strength, Not to forget, Federer
brings grace and elegance to the game, while Nadal brings along with him the athletism and
strength, also tat they don play with the same hand, while their game are like opposite poles of
a magnet, they bring greatness to the game, Federer raises his game at the grandslams, he has
reached 20 consecutive semifinals of the grandslams and still heading to his 21st, tats quite a
record one shud be proud even years after retirement, if not for Nadal, Federer shud be 20 Majors by now, but one can't complain for the non-stop entertainment these two hv displayed to the world.. even if they don stay in the books as the greatest players of the game, atleast they ll
be the greatest Rivals in the sport, atleast for that v r highly grateful to these masters of the
sport.

Atleast for that v hv to be highly thankful for these two gentlemen.. I haven't watched greats like Pete, Agassi, Becker, Laver, Lendl etc play the game, watching Federer and Nadal is enuff for me