10 years ago today one of the biggest upsets in tennis occurred - Söderling beats Nadal

Aussie Darcy

Aussie Darcy

Bionic Poster
Yup, it's been exactly 10 years since Robin Söderling knocked out the then #1 and 4x defending champ Rafael Nadal at the French Open.

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Pretty big deal and still historic. 10 years on, Nadal is still the overwhelming favorite for the title and Soderling is long retired.
 
ollinger said:
People make more of this than it really was. Soderling was a seeded and highly regarded player, was ranked 12th in the world after the tournament. It was not a qualifier with no standing beating a top player. Sooner or later Rafa would have a struggle at the FO, and that was it.
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Never been done before... never since...
 
The greatest upset I've ever seen. Bar none.

Nobody expected Rafa to go his whole career without losing to someone, but I always thought it would be a Djokovic or a Murray or another top top guy to come along later down the line who would end the streak.

Not a guy like Soderling. He hadn't done a thing of note in his career before that tournament. All his (minimal) success came later down the line.

He had played Rafa in Rome that same year and lost 6-0 6-1 and looked absolutely lost. If you'd have told me before the French Open that Soderling was Rafa's first round opponent, I would have thought it a nice easy start for Rafa.

This match was such a foregone conclusion that I'd gone out on a long dog walk and forgotten it was even being played that day. The match just wasn't in my mental schedule at all.

When I flicked on the TV and saw it was 4-6 7-6 2-6 (2 sets to 1 and ongoing), just absolute shellshock. That's only how I can describe it.

And my God that 4th set was a nervous tightrope! I think Rafa blew an easy inside-out forehand into the tramlines to make it 1-4 in the breaker and that was when it truly hit me he was going to lose.
 
ollinger said:
People make more of this than it really was. Soderling was a seeded and highly regarded player, was ranked 12th in the world after the tournament. It was not a qualifier with no standing beating a top player. Sooner or later Rafa would have a struggle at the FO, and that was it.
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I see what you’re saying, but also Soderling was a total indoor specialist at that point. He had 3 titles to his name, all 250s on carpet, and I think 6 runner-up finishes, all on indoor hard and none higher than the 500 level. He’d never been past the third round of ANY major before that tournament. He was an established player but he was established in precisely a way that made it nearly unfathomable that he could beat Nadal at the French. A guy who’d never even been pushed to 5 sets in the four previous editions. Who’d lost just 3 best-of-three clay matches since the start of Monte-Carlo in 2005. It almost would have made more sense for a total nobody to come out and knock Nadal out than for a tall, flat-hitting indoor specialist like Soderling to do it.
 
ollinger said:
People make more of this than it really was. Soderling was a seeded and highly regarded player, was ranked 12th in the world after the tournament. It was not a qualifier with no standing beating a top player. Sooner or later Rafa would have a struggle at the FO, and that was it.
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Agreed, but you know some have to beat this drum out of frustration that other allegedly "top" players had no game against Nadal at that event. Bitter wish fulfilment situation.

...and this was not the biggest upset of this century.
 
ScottleeSV said:
The greatest upset I've ever seen. Bar none.

Nobody expected Rafa to go his whole career without losing to someone, but I always thought it would be a Djokovic or a Murray or another top top guy to come along later down the line who would end the streak.

Not a guy like Soderling. He hadn't done a thing of note in his career before that tournament. All his (minimal) success came later down the line.

He had played Rafa in Rome that same year and lost 6-0 6-1 and looked absolutely lost. If you'd have told me before the French Open that Soderling was Rafa's first round opponent, I would have thought it a nice easy start for Rafa.

This match was such a foregone conclusion that I'd gone out on a long dog walk and forgotten it was even being played that day. The match just wasn't in my mental schedule at all.

When I flicked on the TV and saw it was 4-6 7-6 2-6 (2 sets to 1 and ongoing), just absolute shellshock. That's only how I can describe it.

And my God that 4th set was a nervous tightrope! I think Rafa blew an easy inside-out forehand into the tramlines to make it 1-4 in the breaker and that was when it truly hit me he was going to lose.
Click to expand...

I woke up in the 4th set, saw the scoreline, chalked it up to early morning haziness and went back to sleep. I literally could not believe the score and assumed I read it wrong.
 
Aussie Darcy said:
Yup, it's been exactly 10 years since Robin Söderling knocked out the then #1 and 4x defending champ Rafael Nadal at the French Open.

01tennis2_600.JPG


Pretty big deal and still historic. 10 years on, Nadal is still the overwhelming favorite for the title and Soderling is long retired.
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I bet a lot of us here remember exactly where we were when that match happened. Biggest upset of the last 20 years and one of the biggest in the Open era.
 
ollinger said:
People make more of this than it really was. Soderling was a seeded and highly regarded player, was ranked 12th in the world after the tournament. It was not a qualifier with no standing beating a top player. Sooner or later Rafa would have a struggle at the FO, and that was it.
Click to expand...
That's why I consider Istomin's win over Djokovic a bigger upset. Istomin was a journeyman qualifier (or wild card idk). It came completely out of the blue. Djokovic was 40-1 since 2011, only losing to Wawrinka, and he was #2 and the overwhelming favorite for a 7th AO.

For Söderling, that upset was a breakthrough win (similar to Fedr over Sampras; the upset provided a springboard for a new elite player). For Istomin, he came out of nowhere and went right back.
 
vive le beau jeu ! said:
thanks again, robin :)

we badly need another denadalization.
and a definitive one, this time... tennis has been ruined enough by the topspin plague :cry:
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It was never definitive. Nadal won 7 more French Opens after that time and 9/10 French Opens after 2005. 2009 loss was the biggest shock of the century but it never affected him.
 
And where is he now?? 10 years in advance?! LMAO that is right! Rafa is still playing and winning, while that mug is long since retired!
 
Lol at the cursory touching of hands at the net (wasn't even a handshake) and Söderling's over the top celebrations (you'd be forgiven for thinking he had won the title). Clearly no love lost between those 2. The outcome must have been as galling to Nadal as it was thrilling for Söderling. :cool:
 
Djokovic2011 said:
It was a day of jubilation no doubt but in retrospect doesn't bring as much of a smile to my face as it used to given the fact Nadal's gone on to win it another seven times since. :rolleyes:
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That's why it could be the upset of the century. After that match everything went normal. :cool:
 
Mainad said:
Lol at the cursory touching of hands at the net (wasn't even a handshake) and Söderling's over the top celebrations (you'd be forgiven for thinking he had won the title). Clearly no love lost between those 2. The outcome must have been as galling to Nadal as it was thrilling for Söderling. :cool:
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They had previous, from the R32 of 2007 Wimbledon. They were both on and off the court 12 times from the first Saturday to the following Wednesday, with no play on a dry Sunday.

Soderling's win over Nadal at the 2009 French Open is the biggest upset in the sense that Nadal had seemed unbeatable over best of 5 sets on clay, Nadal was 31-0 at the French Open, had never been pushed to 5 sets there and had not actually lost a set at the event since the 2007 final against Federer. Nadal's win over Hewitt in the R32 of the 2009 French Open was a 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 beatdown. What chance did Soderling have? Nadal had never lost to him, and a month earlier Nadal had beaten Soderling 6-1, 6-0 at the 2009 Italian Open. Clay was also seen as Soderling's weakest surface, and it was a bit of a surprise that he beat Ferrer in the R32 of the 2009 French Open, and Soderling had also never progressed beyond the R32 stage of a major before the event.

In ranking terms, the biggest upset was probably at 1991 Wimbledon, when Nick Brown ranked 591 in the world defeated Goran Ivanisevic who was world number 10 and the previous year's Wimbledon semi finalist. And there's also George Bastl, a lucky loser, defeating Pete Sampras at 2002 Wimbledon, in Sampras' last match at Wimbledon.
 
TheFifthSet said:
What’s a bigger tennis upset then?
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US Open 2015--Serena was on her way to winning the zenith of tennis achievements--the Grand Slam--but was defeated in the semifinals. The build up to that USO, and Serena's journey toward the Grand Slam (and how it ended) was the tennis story of the year, and easily the biggest of the century.

After that, 2010 Winbledon, where Tomáš Berdych defeated Federer in the quarters. That was an unexpected, explosive match.
 
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