Soderling Unbeatable On Home Turf

Written by: Staff on 18th July 2011

Soderling Unbeatable On Home Turf

Robin Soderling of Sweden returns to Bernard Tomic of Australia during their third round match for the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 25 June 2011. EPA/NEIL MUNNS |

Super Swede and top seed Robin Soderling won the SkiStar Swedish Open final on Sunday. He outclassed Spaniard and World No. 6 David Ferrer 6-2 6-2. This was Robin’s second SkiStar Swedish Open title. He also won the title in 2009 when he beat Juan Monaco in the final. Last year Robin was the runner up and lost to Nicolas Almagro of Spain.

The World No. 5 only lost 13 games during his week in Båstad. This is Robin’s fourth title for the year, this year he also won Brisbane, Marseille and Rotterdam.

“It’s always great to win and play well on home soil. I am very satisfied with the week and I’m proud of myself. I played really well from the first to the last point the whole week,” Soderling said.

Robin has appointed a new coach fellow Swede Fredrik Rosengren. Rosengren has previously worked with Jonas Bjorkman, Magnus Larsson and Mario Ancic. This is the new partnership’s first title.

When asked if clay is his new favourite surface he simply said, “At the level I’m at, you have to master all the surfaces.”

The winner’s cheque this week is €72 600, not bad for 69 minutes work. Soderling will earn 250 ATP ranking points.

Second seed David Ferrer said, “Robin played a really good match. I didn’t really have a chance. He is better than me and he was too good today. Sometimes I can play better, other times worse.”

Ferrer also said he is not thinking about breaking in to the Top 5 yet. “I just want to keep enjoying my tennis.”

Robert Linstedt and Horia Tecau continued their success this week. The team came from Wimbledon where they lost to Bob and Mike Bryan in the final. The opposition Simon Aspelin and Andreas Siljestrom didn’t have any tricks up their sleeves to stop the Swedish/Romanian combination. Linstedt and Tecau won in straight sets 6-3 6-3.

This match was Simon Aspelin’s last match as a professional tennis player. He choose to retire in Båstad as it is one of his favourite tournaments.

Lindstedt had mixed feelings going in to this final. “Professional sport is not a charity. Even if I would like to see my buddy Simon win his last professional tennis match, I can’t allow it.

The doubles match was interrupted by rain. It rained so hard the match had to be moved from Centre Court to Court One to finish up.

“It is amazing you don’t get to defend your title every year, so to defend my title in my hometown is amazing. It is a title that I thought I would never win, but now I have been the last three years in the final. I am on cloud nine right now, Lindstedt said.

Horia Tecau was very pleased with the way the team has played over the European summer. “Last year we had a great year with S-Hertogenbosch, Wimbledon and here. We had a lot of points to defend. So this summer we tried to take one tournament, one match at the time.”

Aspelin was looking to win his third title in Bastad. He won in 2003 with Massimo Bertonlini and in 2007 with Julian Knowle. We like to say “Lycka till” to Simon and wish him all the best with the future.