Wimbledon - Federer Gets to Quarterfinals after Defeating Soderling

The Swiss Roger Federer, world No.2, beat the Swede Robin Soderling in the fourth round at Wimbledon this past Monday 6-4, 7-6(5), 7-6(5).

This was the 11th confrontation between the two players and it was also the 11th victory of the Swiss over Soderling. Before this match, the Swiss defeated Soderling in the final of the French Open in three straight sets. After this triumph, Federer has only dropped one set in the 26 sets played against the Swede, which is really impressive.

This was a game dominated by big serves and some big points. The Swiss converted 23 aces whereas Soderling served 16. From the start, there was only one break of serve in the match, and it came down in the 9th game of the first set when even though the Swede saved to break points, he finished missing the third and making five unforced errors.

For his part, Federer faced only two break points in the entire match, and they came in the third set after winning 13 points on serve consecutively and 3 straight service games. The set was 4-4 then and the Swiss managed to save both.

The third set went into a tiebreak, and Soderling was able to go up a mini-break a 5-4, but then Federer responded with a spectacular forehand winner. On the 10th game of the tiebreak Soderling made a double fault and then Federer closed the match with a great 119 mph serve that the Swede returned wide.

This triumph of the Swiss brings him to his 25th Grand Slam quarterfinal and gets to 48 match victories at Wimbledon, matching Ivan Lendl. Now the world No.2 is just three wins away from setting a new record for the most Grand Slams’ wins, since if he wins Wimbledon this time, he would be adding his 15th title and also would claim back the No. 1 position in the world rankings.

After the match, the Swiss expressed that even though the game had a few rallies, he felt really good playing with Soderling.

"It was sort of a serving contest out there today. Not many rallies, so maybe not as much fan for the people. Today was hard to get through. Robin served great, thank god he served a double fault at the end of the tie-break because otherwise it could have been four sets. I mean maybe it's not the most fun match to go through. But I like to beat this guy because he makes it hard on us. He's become an excellent player,” said the world No.2 Federer

For his part, Soderling stated that even having a great match; he knew that it would be difficult to beat Federer in grass, so he was satisfied for his great effort after playing against the best player of all-times for the 11th occasion.

Now the Swiss is preparing to play against the Croat Ivo Karlovic, who has an amazing record of 137 aces in the tournament and defeated 9th seeded Tsonga and 7th seeded Verdasco in his way to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal.  This may be a difficult match for Federer but not impossible for his extraordinary natural game, whereas for Karlovic despite his height and good serve, Federer will be an extremely hard contender on this quarterfinals on July 1st.