Rafael Nadal suffers first ever French Open defeat at hands of Robin Soderling
Robin Soderling caused one of the greatest French Open upsets of all time by beating Rafael Nadal 6-2, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 in the fourth round of the men's singles. Nadal, the top seed and world No1, had never previously lost in 31 career matches at Roland Garros.
Where Nadal had been chasing a record fifth consecutive French Open title, Soderling, the 23rd seed, has never before even reached the quarter-finals. "I told myself this is just another match," said Soderling afterwards. "All the time, I was trying to play as if it was a training session. When I was 4-1 up in the tie-break, I started to believe."
Soderling broke Nadal twice on the way to wrapping up a comfortable first set in just 34 minutes, and took his first service game in the second set to love, but Nadal broke in the third game and was soon serving for the set at 5-4. An unusual number of unforced errors were creeping into the Spaniard's game, however, and he allowed Soderling to pull a break back and set up a tie-break.
The Swede crumbled at this point, conceding six consecutive points as Nadal took the tie-break 7-2 to level the match and having found some momentum, it looked like things were perfectly set for the defending champion to go on and win the match from there. But Soderling had other ideas and having held his serve through the third set, he broke Nadal's in the seventh game before serving out to love to take it 6-4.
Nadal was clearly rattled but a fightback appeared to be on the cards after an early break in the fourth set gave the Spaniard a 2-0 advantage. But Soderling broke back immediately, setting up another tie-break.
When it came it was Soderling's turn to dominate proceedings, the Swede overwhelming his opponent 7-2 to complete an incredible win. His reward is a place in the quarter-finals, where he will meet the winner of Fernando Verdasco's match with Nikolay Davydenko.