Djokovic Demolishes Soderling; Will Face Murray In Rome
By James Waterson Photo Credit:Tony Chang; Natasha Peterson/Corleve
His victory over Soderling puts him at 35 consecutive wins in 2011, seven matches away from tying John McEnroe’s record of 42 wins.
Similar to his match against Stanislas Wawrinka in the third round, the first set was relatively close as both men traded breaks of serve, but Djokovic dominated the second set.
Soderling started well, breaking the Serb at Love in the first game. But he surrendered the advantage immediately afterwards.
The match stayed on serve for the next few games. The pivotal moment came on Djokovic’s serve at 3-3, when Soderling pushed hard for a second break of serve.
Djokovic persevered, and after almost 10 minutes he held and broke Soderling in the next game.
That game seemed to deflate the Swede, as he lost the last nine games of the match.
During the two-set encounter, Djokovic played more aggressively and accurately: he hit 22 winners to 14 unforced errors, while Soderling had 13 winners to 26 errors.
Yet it wasn’t just Djokovic’s baseline play that enabled him to crush Soderling: his effectiveness on the return puts his opponents under constant pressure.
For the match, he won 65 percent of points on his first serve and 68 percent on his second serve, while Soderling won only 53 percent on his first serve and a low 19 percent on his second.
In fact, during the second set, Soderling won none of his 10 second serve points.
Djokovic takes his dominant form into the semifinals, where he’ll face Andy Murray in a rematch of this year’s Australian Open final.
He has a 5-3 match advantage against Murray, with three of those wins coming on clay.
Murray took on the German, Florian Mayer, Friday morning, defeating him 1-6, 6-1, 6-1.
The Scot said he got off to a slow start because he was unfamiliar with Mayer, an opponent he had never faced before.
“I’d never played against him or practiced with him and he is a little bit difficult and so in the first few games I got a little bit up tight because I was not really seeing his game well and did not really put much pressure on him,” Murray said in an ATP press conference.
After the first set, Murray took a short break and used the time to compose himself.
“I was a bit confused in the first set and not really thinking my way through the points. I went for a toilet break at the end of the first set and to see what I needed to do differently,” he said.
“I managed to turn it around but I needed to get some emotion into the match. He doesn’t really say much on the court and he makes you feel a little inferior because of the way that he plays – he makes the game look easy and it’s just very strange… I needed to get myself pumped up and my legs moving and I seemed to get back into it.”
On the other side of the draw, Rafael Nadal dismissed Marin Cilic 6-1, 6-3. Nadal put in another solid returning performance in the match, winning 64 percent of second serve return points and 51 percent overall, while winning 76 percent of his points on serve.
Nadal faces Richard Gasquet in the next round, a man he holds an 8-0 advantage against.
In his quarterfinal match, Gasquet came from a set behind to defeat Tomas Berdych 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.
In the first set, Berdych was untouchable on serve, winning 74 percent of his first and 78 percent of his second serve points. Because of that, he faced no break points, while he converted one of three of his chances.
Yet his effectiveness dropped off considerably in the second set. Most notably, he won only 38 percent of his second serve points and was broken twice. His serve didn’t improve in the third set, either.
Gasquet’s serve was more consistent throughout the match, averaging 70 pecent of points won on the first and 54 percent of points won on the second serve.
Keep checking TennisNow.com throughout the day and throughout the tournament for more results and analysis, visit our live scores page to see the action as it unfolds and check back to the main page before bed (10:30 p.m. CDT) for our "Matches to Watch" for the following day's action in Rome.