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  • ATP Rotterdam - Verdasco vs Soderling

    2/21/08 3:54 AM | David Cox
    - It’s been a highly impressive return for 23 year old Soderling after 6 months out with a wrist injury. The Swede was closing in on the top 20 when disaster struck against Safin in Canada last August and he’s now outside the top 50.

    Keen to make up for lost time, he took out Nieminen and Gasquet in Marseille last week before losing 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 to eventual finalist Ancic. Another surprise victory followed in rd1 here, beating Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. Soderling seemed to want it more than the Cypriot and in the end that proved the difference on the big points.

    He leads Verdasco 2-1 on the head-to-heads, winning 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 on the clay of Bastaad last year. Verdasco, the world no 30 enjoyed a contrastingly easy progress into the last 16, Jarkko Nieminen turned up severely debilitated by flu symptoms and wasn’t able to put up much of a fight, going down 6-2, 6-2.

    The Spaniard finished 2007 strongly, reaching the St Petersburg final but he’s yet to make a quarter-final this year. One of the tour’s colourful characters, “Nando’s” game is based around a huge forehand and he will just keep letting rip whatever the match situation. At times he appears to be just playing points rather than the match as a whole, no matters how many errors he’s making, he’ll just keeping going for those big shots.

    Soderling is less naturally talented but much more solid and a really tough competitor.

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