Soderling battles to Swedish Open semifinals
Tennis newsRobin Soderling battled through to the semifinals of the Swedish Open Friday with a hard-fought victory over Italys Andreas Seppi on a day when four of the top five seeds won.
Top-seeded Soderling prevailed in three sets 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5) at the clay-court tournament, but was given a scare by the 76th-ranked Seppi.
The Italian took the first set after breaking Soderling with the score at 2-2. The big-serving Swede, who hit 13 aces during the game, won the second despite at one point trailing 3-5.
The third set was even closer, with both players having chances to win the match before Soderling won the tie-break.
“Its nice to have won without playing well,” said Soderling after the match. “At the end I didnt do anything special, he just missed.”
Soderling will face David Ferrer in the next round, after he swept Uruguays Pablo Cuevas 6-3, 6-3 on center court.
Soderling came out on top in five sets when the pair met last in the fourth round of this years Wimbledon.
Also making it through to the last four is Spains Tommy Robredo, who defeated compatriot Fernando Verdasco in straight sets 6-4, 6-3.
The fifth-seeded Robredo, who is chasing his third Swedish Open title, needed only 82 minutes to down second-seeded Verdasco.
“If you dont play the best match of the week against a top 10 player then you lose,” said Robredo. “I was focused all the time.”
Robredo plays countryman Nicolas Almagro, who came from behind to beat Croatias Franco Skugor in three sets 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the final quarterfinal match of the day.
Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 8:07 am and is filed under Tennis news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
