ouch! söderling sure won't be one of the favourites now heading in to RG with three straight losses...

Both FO 2009 winner and runner-up in questionalbe form?!!!!...........

but one is not the same calibre as the other. you can expect fed to go deep into week 2 (likely to reach final) but you wouldn't necessarily expect sorderling to do the same.

soderling will go out of top 10 if he does not reach round of 16..
poor sod..

correction * i meant top 8..
that he would find it tough to qualify for wtf

hey clayking...ever tried playing virtua tennis 2009...ur man jcf is the best player in it imo......

isn't it a video game??
jcf is the best?? really???
must be a nice game..

yeah man its a video game....u can play it on ur pc...its pretty simple...jcf has the biggest forehand in the game...nalbandian has the craziest backhand.....but jcf is the most balanced in that game...even better than rafa and fed!!

actually vrael, had jcf not been injured in 2004 post a.o., he could have challenged fed a lot more..
because his game was ever improving on grass and hard courts around that time..
and that was the time when men's tennis was actually taking a definite shape..
jcf missed out that stage and the rest is history..
the legend of fed was born then, with roddick being the only competitor around..

@clayking
im not at all surprised that soderling lost. He doesnt have the style of play thats conductive to constant success on clay. Hes nothing more than a streaky ball basher who got hot for 2 weeks. But I read a post on another site written by someone who claims to be a Challenger Player who picks up extra money by showing up at ATP Events to warm up the pros. He said he'd been to The French Open since 2004, and last year got there 4 days out from the start of the tournament. Hitting with Fernando Gonzalez on an outside court they both realized after a few minutes these were not the same courts at all. They openly opined Nadal could actually lose there for the first time. The surface was allegedly replaced with a different topsoil that's ground much finer, or as they put it, sped up the courts by about 40%. According to the poster a number of the players had petitioned the French Federation this year to return to the previous composite of topsoil, but they were told "No mas" (the players who petitioned were not publicly disclosed). Normally this stuff is sort of suspect to say the least. But when you look at the Men's Semi Finalists from last year - Federer, Del Potro, Gonzalez and Soderling - it can give you food for thought. These 4 guys have carved out the best results of their careers on hard courts, with Big Forehands that are much flatter that the highly top-spun loopy forehands that always succeeded on clay. These four guys are Power Hitters, and clay (the traditional clay) blunts power-hitting in favor of grinding point construction. If the above is true(it might not be,the guy could have been talkin bs) then soderlings in with a chance.

tj,
We can only hope for a faster court and hot dry weather. Vive la France!!!!!!!!!

For 12 months Soderling has basked in the reflected glory of being the first person to defeat Rafa at RG. His recent results can have done little for his confidence and my guess is the pressure will get to him in the next fortnight.

how would i love soderling to be in rafa's side of the draw this year...a 100 % percent rafa will tear the sod apart on clay

I am hoping the same thing vrael to silence those doomsayers of Nadal. That 1 defeat of Nadal to Soderling weighed too heavy, for them the score was like 10-1. You can't blame them anyway for they expect too much from Nadal, forgetting that he can lose anytime to anyone. The irony is that, they don't accept any excuse and that withdrawals of Nadal at Queens & Wimbledon were not enough proof that he was really injured this time last year. So injured or not, Rafa has to play and here is hoping Rafa will win back his RG house.

Vamos Rafa! all eyes on you once again, bury that bad loss, play well and stay healthy.

i wonder how much money a person could have made by betting for the sod to win back last year against rafa........;)

this year is different...the phoenix shall rise,reclaim the throne!!!