Nadal No Worries With Soderling This Year At French

Rafael Nadal played easily beat the Number 5 seed Robin Soderling of Sweden in straight sets 6-4, 6-2, and 6-4. Nadal won his fifth French Open championship, his seventh Grand Slam title overall, and earned a return to the top ranking in the world. He'll switch places with Roger Federer when the new numbers come out Monday.

"I lost last year because I was not well-prepared, and I had very low morale last year, as well..."

That, and he's not injured anymore, either...

Here's the last game of the match...
((HT: TF1/ATP/Siphodias92))


Here's some post-game analysis from Brad Gilbert...
((HT: ESPN/NBC/ATP))


Nadal is 38-1 at Roland Garros and, three days after his 24th birthday, stands just one French Open title shy of Bjorn Borg's record of six. For the second time in three years, Nadal won the tournament without losing a set.

Federer Out At French In Quarters

Robin Soderling rallied past defending champion Roger Federer in a quarterfinal, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. That ended Federer's record streak of reaching the semifinals in 23 consecutive major events.

It'll be the first Grand Slam semifinal that doesn't have Federer in the last six years...

Federer beat Soderling in last year's final. Before Tuesday, Federer was 12-0 against the big-swinging Swede, winning 28 of their 30 sets.

Here's one of those points that just reinforced that it wasn't going to be Federer's day... even with a little slice action from Roger...
((HT: Eurosport/taur1n))

Nadal Out At French

((HT: Eurosport))

So much for five in a row at Roland Garros...
"Robin Soderling" is the answer to the trivia question...