By James Waterson
Photo Credit: CLIVE MASON/AFP/Getty Images
(June 23, 2011) World No. 5 Robin Soderling of Sweden came back from a two-set deficit for the third time in his career to defeat Lleyton Hewitt 6-7 (5), 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 Thursday.
Although the first set went to a tiebreaker, Soderling wasn’t helped by the numerous errors he donated to Hewitt. He may have hit 19 winners, but he had 11 unforced errors as well, compared to Hewitt’s tidy 10 winners to two unforced errors.
The Swede’s inconsistency caught up with him in the tiebreaker, and Hewitt, a former Wimbledon champion, snuck away with the first set.
Both men played a sloppy second set, with Soderling hitting nine winners to eight unforced errors and Hewitt hitting six winners to seven unforced errors.
Hewitt earned the decisive break of serve, and Soderling was unable to earn a break point opportunity to level the set.
Soderling cut down on his errors in the final three sets of the match, which may have made the difference. He hit 47 winners and 20 unforced errors, with half of those coming in the final set.
Overall, the Swede hit 75 winners to 39 unforced errors, while Hewitt had 44 winners to 21 unforced errors. Soderling also had 28 aces and he won 69 percent of his service points, compared to Hewitt’s 15 aces and 67 percent of service points won.
He goes on to play the winner between Igor Andreev of Russia and Bernard Tomic of Australia. He’s never played Tomic, but he does have a 2-2 record against Andreev.