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  • Open 13 Previews: Söderling vs. Gasquet

    2/14/08 5:13 PM | Ricky Dimon
    Open 13 Previews: Söderling vs. Gasquet One of the French favorites, Australian Open runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, is already out of the tournament, but that doesn’t mean the Open 13 in Marseille is without some marquee second-round matchups. Highlighting Thursday’s night session will be Robin Soderling and second-seeded Richard Gasquet followed by sixth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis and Ivo Karlovic.

    Robin Söderling vs. (2) Richard Gasquet
    This is the third head-to-head meeting for Soderling and Gasquet, and all three have come within the last two years. In the first encounter on grass in Nottingham back in 2006, the Frenchman got the better of Soderling 7-6(7), 7-6(5). Later that year on carpet in Lyon, Gasquet prevailed once again, this time in three sets 4-6, 6-3, 6-3. The Swede got revenge last season for his two earlier losses, winning in the quarterfinals of this same Marseille tournament 6-1, 7-6(4). That gives Soderling a 1-0 advantage over Gasquet on hard courts, the surface on which they will do battle Thursday night.

    Although Soderling looked good in his first-round upset of Jarkko Nieminen, recent history favors Gasquet. The Frenchman qualified for the year-end Masters Cup last season as one of the top eight players in the world and his currently at his career-high of No. 7. The last six weeks of Gasquet’s 2007 campaign included a runner-up finish in Tokyo and a semifinal appearance at the Masters Series Paris. He has carried that momentum into 2008, reaching the fourth round of last month’s Australian Open before running into on-fire compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

    Prior to his 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 win over Nieminen on Monday, Soderling had not played since last August at the Masters Series Canada, where he retired in his first-round match against Marat Safin. A wrist injury forced him out of tennis until now. The Swede was ranked 26th when he was injured, but the time away from tennis has dropped him to his current position of No. 52 in the world. Still, if Soderling truly is healthy, he has the potential to get back where he belongs. Highlights in 2007 before his injury included semifinal appearances in Doha, Marseille, and Dubai, a quarterfinal run at the Masters Series Monte Carlo, and a berth in the third round at Wimbledon, where he put up a great fight against Rafael Nadal before losing 7-5 in the fifth.

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