Robin Soderling faced a tricky opponent in the the fourth round of the 2011 French Open. Soderling suffered an upset in Melbourne's fourth round - did Roland Garros bring the same fate?
Robin Soderling improved to 16-2 at the French Open since the start of the 2009 tournament with a win over Gilles Simon of France on Monday.
Soderling had little trouble with Simon in the early going of the match as the Swede raced to a two sets to love lead. He looked great to end the match quickly as he went up a break in the third set and led 4-1.
However Soderling then went through a few bad games that allowed Simon back into the match before the world number five took Simon out in the tiebreaker.
The match ended at 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 with Soderling taking the tiebreaker 7-5.
The result ends Simon's tournament, one of France's hopefuls in the event, but a fourth round result is still a good one for Simon. In previous appearances at Roland Garros the former top 10 player had never made it through to the final 16 players and last year he had to miss the tournament entirely.
Soderling now advances to face Rafael Nadal in the quarters as the two players will meet for the third straight year at Roland Garros. Nadal is undefeated against all players in matches played at the French Open with the exception of Soderling as they are 1-1 on head-to-heads at the clay court Slam.
