When the world of tennis awoke on this morning back in 2010, virtually everyone expected Roger Federer to advance through to the semi-finals of the French Open at the expense of Robin Soderling.
After all, the defending champion and world number one had reached the final four of the last 23 Grand Slam events in succession - a record run that stretched back six years.
Soderling was by no means an average player (he was seeded fifth at Roland Garros), but such was the form of Federer that the Swede was given very little chance of winning this encounter, even though he had knocked out Rafael Nadal 12 months earlier. The fact that Federer had defeated Soderling in the previous year's final also weighed heavily on people's minds.
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It appeared that proceedings were going true to form when R-Fed claim the opening set 6-3, winning 22 of his opening 24 service points in the process.
However, with the rainy conditions in Paris came a change of fortunes for Soderling. He started to hit winners beyond the reach of Federer, even from the baseline. "The balls got heavy, but I've played good matches in these kind of conditions in the past. It suits my game," he said at the time.
The crucial break arrived in the opening game of the second set when Soderling overturned a 30-0 deficit to win four straight points. He then held all of his remaining service games to level up the match at one-set all.
"He had some chances in the second set," said Soderling. "When I won the second set, which was very big for me, I really felt I could relax a little bit. After that I started to play better and better."
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The real drama occurred in the third set where it seemed that normal service was about to be resumed. Federer had a set point following a 75-minute rain delay, but Soderling landed a backhand volley over his shoulder to hold. He then went on to win the next two games to take the set and all of a sudden a real upset looked to be on the cards.
"That was a tough set for me to lose, having those chances," said the champion, whose chances of staying in the competition were now hanging by a thread.
Federer broke for a 2-0 lead at the start of the fourth set, but he was uncharacteristically wasteful on his own service game and Soderling was level at the first time of asking.
Serves were then traded up until the ninth game when four unforced errors from Federer gifted Soderling a 5-4 lead, leaving the man from Sweden the chance to serve for the match. It came about five points later as Federer was unable to return a second serve and so ended one of the most memorable runs in Grand Slam history with a 3-6 6-3 7-5 6-4 loss.
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"It all comes to an end at some stage," he said. "I think it was a great run - now I've got the quarter-final streak going, I guess. It's been an amazing run. I'm very proud of myself about that streak and it's probably one of the greatest ones I have in my history books," a defeated Federer told reporters.
A triumphant Soderling added: "This is a big win, but it's not the final. I don't want to celebrate too much. I want to focus on the next game."
He went on to progress through to the final thanks to a 6–3 3–6 5–7 6–3 6–3 victory over Tomas Berdych, but his luck had run out by the time he played Nadal in the final. The Spaniard regained his title with a routine 6-4 6-2 6-4 success.
Liam Apicella
