Soderling gains 1st Grand Slam final by beating Gonzalez at French Open

Soderling beats Gonzalez to reach French final

PARIS — Robin Soderling’s upset of Rafael Nadal cleared a path to the French Open final.

The player who took advantage: Soderling.

The surprising Swede extended his improbable Roland Garros run by beating Fernando Gonzalez in a seesaw semifinal on Friday, winning 6-3, 7-5, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4.

Soderling let a big lead slip away when he lost his serve in the final game of the third and fourth sets. He fell behind 3-love and 4-1 in the final set, but down the stretch came up with the kind of shotmaking that has carried him through the tournament, and he swept the last five games.

On Sunday, the No. 23-seeded Soderling will play the winner of the second semifinal between No. 2 Roger Federer and No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro.

“I have very far to go,” Soderling said.

Federer is trying to complete a career Grand Slam and win his 14th major title, which would tie Pete Sampras’ record. Federer has been beaten at the French Open each of the past four years by Nadal, the four-time defending champion who lost to Soderling in the fourth round Sunday.

Soderling never advanced beyond the third round in his previous 21 major tournaments.

“I had maybe the biggest challenge in tennis right now to beat Nadal here on clay in Paris,” he said. “I was still in the tournament, so even though I played a great match, I wanted more. I still feel that way.”

Soderling has never won a clay-court title, and the victory over Gonzalez was only his fourth in a five-set match.

“I did a good job of coming back,” Gonzalez said. “But Soderling is playing at a really high level. He gets to every ball. I couldn’t take him out of position.”

The 3½-hour semifinal had lots of drama, and a little controversy. Gonzalez challenged a call late in the fourth set, contending a shot by Soderling had landed wide, and when the umpire denied his appeal, Gonzalez sat on the disputed mark in the clay to smooth it out.

“I did something for fun,” Gonzalez said. “One point doesn’t affect a five-set match.”

Gonzalez won the game anyway, but played the rest of the match with dirt caked on his shorts.

The quality of play was high throughout. Soderling had 74 winners, including 16 aces, and Gonzalez totaled 59 winners, including 22 aces.

On another sunny day in Paris, with temperatures in the low 60s, the crowd included six-time French Open champion Bjorn Borg of Sweden. The nation’s tennis fortunes have slipped in recent years, and Soderling is the first Swede to reach any clay-court final since 2000.

“We really need some upside in the tennis in Sweden,” Soderling said. “Hopefully this will make a lot of young kids start playing tennis.”

When Soderling hit a forehand winner on the first match point, he fell to his knees and covered his eyes.

“My first feeling was actually relief that the match was over, because it was a really long match, and I was tired at the end,” Soderling said. “And then after a few seconds, I got really, really happy.”

He has won nine consecutive matches, a career best, and is expected to climb to a career-high ranking of No. 12 next week.

The all-Russian women’s final Saturday will renew a rivalry dating back a decade, and Svetlana Kuznetsova hopes to fare better than the first time she faced Dinara Safina.

They were juniors then — Kuznetsova from St. Petersburg, Safina from Moscow, both with athletic bloodlines.

“I was like 12 or 13, and Dinara was an unbelievable girl,” Kuznetsova said. “She’s one year younger than me. I had no chance playing against her. I remember I lose to her 6-1, 6-love or something.”

They’ve played each other many times since, and Safina leads 7-4 in tour-level matches. Saturday’s showdown will be the biggest yet, with a Grand Slam title at stake.

It would be the first for Safina and the second for Kuznetsova, the 2004 U.S. Open champion.

“It’s definitely going to be stress, definitely going to be emotion, definitely going to be business. Everything,” the seventh-seeded Kuznetsova said.

They’ve been the best players on clay this year, meeting on the surface twice in finals last month. Kuznetsova beat Safina for the title at Stuttgart, Germany, then lost when they played in the final in Rome a week later.

Since climbing to the top of the rankings in April, Safina has reached the final in the four tournaments she has played, all on clay.

“She’s going to be favorite to win,” Kuznetsova said. “She’s No. 1. She has played an unbelievable season.”

In Safina’s 21 matches as the top-ranked player, she has lost only once — to Kuznetsova.