Robin Soderling on Facing Roger Federer: Nobody Beats Me 11 Times in a Row

June 29, 2009 By Larry Brown 1 Comment

When Roger Federer beat Robin Soderling in the finals of the French Open to win his 14th grand slam title, Soderling injected some humor into his runner-up speech. The Swede was just yoking around when he said this:

With the two set to meet once again, this time in the 4th round at Wimbledon, Soderling could be preparing his “nobody beats me 11 times in a row” speech for after the match. Soderling did upset Rafael Nadal on clay so I guess it’s possible he does the almost equally unthinkable task of knocking out Roger on grass. If he pulls it off, he would be ending one of the more impressive streaks in all of sports: Federer’s reached 20 straight grand slam semifinals. That’s like reaching the Final Four in March Madness 20 years in a row. Impressive.

Google+

Filed Under: Tennis Tagged With: Robin Soderling, Roger Federer

Gene

Well, Roger did beat Soderling, but Robin played him tough and lost two of the three sets in tiebreakers.

Roger needs a win Wednesday to continue his streak of making the semis in every major since the French in 2004. I have heard the streak likened to Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak. Federer had to be prepared to play for five straight years and avoid injury, illness and an opponent who “plays in the zone” by being hot and confident for that match.

To put it into prospective, Ivan Lendl has the next longest streak in this category, and it is ten grand slam semis in a row. Another way to look at it is that Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic, numbers 1, 3 and 4 in the world, all have streaks of zero. Not one of them made the semis of this year’s French. Nadal, the world number 1, had a streak of five in a row broken in Paris, since he only made the quarters of the 2007 US Open.