Internazionali BNL d'Italia:
07-13 May 2007

Robin started the second clay Masters tournament against Benjamin Becker in a match that spanned over two days due to rain delay. Soderling had clear advantage over the young German and broke him four times while losing his own service only once.
In the second round the hurdle was much tougher though with the recent Estoril winner Novak Djokovic against him. The match was full of errors, something uncommon for both players. Soderling was the first to break, as he lead 4-1. He allowed a setback though, as Djokovic broke back (he won six straight points from 0-30 to win two straight games), but right in the next game the Swede broke again to serve out the set in the first game.
The second set started game for game for a while, but at 1-2, Robin faced a breakpoint. He hit a big groundstroke, which after a big argument with the umpire was called out. Soderling was clearly unhappy with this decision and showed so, being lucky not to get a warning.
He recovered though and broke back when Djokovic was serving for the set. But at 4-5 he wasn't able to win his serve, his 20th unforced error for the second set alone gave the Serbian the set.
Soderling broke right at the start of the third set, but again Djokovic rebroke again before the middle of the set. Then the Swede had 15-40 for another break, but this time he didn't convert. Djokovic then broke to love and promptly served out the match in the next game.
A bad experience for Robin, as he could have easily win this match. Djokovic was making a lot of errors from the baseline and Soderling just had to stay error free. This is what he didn't do and now will lose a lot of ranking points (he didn't play in Rome last year, but will lose 75 points from Nottingham).

Internazionali BNL d'Italia Rome, Italy Surface: Clay Status: Tennis Masters Series Prize Money: €2,082,500 Draw Size: 56 Winner: (2)Rafael Nadal Finalist: (6)Fernando Gonzalez Robin Soderling this year: Second round Lost to (5)Novak Djokovic 6-3, 4-6, 3-6 Defending Champion: (2)Rafael Nadal Last Year's finalist: (1)Roger Federer Robin Soderling last year: Not Played Seeded players: 1. Roger Federer 2. Rafael Nadal 3. Andy Roddick 4. Nikolay Davydenko 5. Novak Djokovic 6. Fernando Gonzalez 7. Tommy Robredo 8. Ivan Ljubicic 9. James Blake 10. Andy Murray 11. Tommy Haas 12. Tommy Robredo 13. Richard Gasquet 14. David Ferrer 15. Mikhail Youzhny 16. Juan Carlos Ferrero cut: Tim Henman - 47

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