Soderling grabs second consecutive title in Rotterdam
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Robin Soderling successfully defended his title at the ABN Amro Tennis Tournament on Sunday.
The title holder beat Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 3-6, 6- 3 in the final of the ATP 500 event in Rotterdam.
The match was concluded in a swift time of one hour and 23 minutes, because so few long rallies were witnessed at the Ahoy arena.
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The Swede scooped his eighth ATP Tour title and retains his world number four ranking. |
"I feel at home in Rotterdam and might even move here," the winner joked. "It brings out the best in me. It's very tough to defend a title, so I am very positive about that. It was a tough week with many matches. Especially the one against Mikhail Youzhny was tough, the second round against Philipp Kohlschreiber was tough also."
Top seed Soderling started the match against Tsonga, seeded eighth, with an early break, but gave that advantage away just as easily in the fifth game. However, the Swede got another crucial break to move to 5-3 and went on to win the first set.
In the second set both players gave each other no chance on service in the first four games. At 2-2 Tsonga had some trouble keeping his serve after wasting a 40-0 advantage, but he managed to win the game and got a crucial break in the following one. The Frenchman continued with a love game and three aces in a row and finished the set with a further love game.
Soderling and Tsonga continued to dominate on their own serve in the third set, but it was the reigning champion who suddenly stopped that streak. He led 40-15 in the ninth game, converted his first break point and gained a 5-4 advantage.
"Actually I could not do much about it," said Tsonga afterwards. "I can not say I played a bad game. He was a bit lucky moving to 30-0 and just finished it. We both served well in the beginning of the served set and he raised his level a bit towards the end."
Soderling was able to finish the match aonis own service and did so convincingly.
Soderling and Tsonga have met three times before, with the Swede winning all three in straight sets. "I am glad I played better than in the other matches," declared Tsonga.
"I did good things on baseline, at the net, not only on serve, but he just played better."
After Arthur Ashe (1975, 1976), Stefan Edberg (1987, 1988) and Nicolas Escude (2001, 2002), Soderling became the fourth player to successfully defend his title in Rotterdam and scooped his eighth ATP World Tour title in his 18th final.
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