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With the French Open looming in a week from now, let’s take a moment to relive the 2009 tournament continuing the series of French Open reviews.
This year saw many shocks and surprises, as both defending champions crashed out within two hours of each other to unheralded opponents, while Maria Sharapova made her comeback from a serious shoulder injury and Roger Federer finally found that missing piece to his Grand Slam trophy collection.
The men: Champion Roger Federer
It was a year in which Rafael Nadal was destined to make history at the French Open, as he sought to become the first man to ever win five French Open trophies. As well as this, he was seeking to become the first man since Jim Courier in 1992 to win the Australian and French Open in the same year.
Entering this year’s tournament, Nadal had not lost a set in Paris since the 2007 final, and had gone through the 2008 tournament without the concession of a set.
So it was no surprise that he was able to win his first three matches in straight sets; thus extending his winning streak to 31, with Lleyton Hewitt being his most recent victim.
However, it was on May 31, 2009 in which the course of history would change forever.
Standing in the way of Nadal and a place in the quarter-finals was Robin Soderling, who won only one game in his last meeting against Nadal, had reached the fourth round of a major for the very first time and had never beaten any of tennis’ Big Four (Nadal, Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray).
Additionally, the Swede was coming off a victory over David Ferrer.
Playing fearlessly like his life depended on it, Soderling put Nadal on the back foot from the first ball, and produced the performance of his career to send the match into a historic tiebreak at the end of the fourth set.
What we didn’t know was that the fourth set tiebreak would produce a first milestone, one way or the other – either Nadal would be defeated at the French Open for the first time, or that he would be pushed into a fifth set for the first time.
Ultimately, Soderling would win the fourth set tiebreak – and the match, thus sentencing Nadal to his first (and so far only) defeat at the French Open. This came a little after the women’s defending champion, Ana Ivanovic, went out in straight sets to Victoria Azarenka (more in the women’s recap below).
Soderling thus advanced to the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, and proved that his victory over Nadal was no fluke, by destroying Nikolay Davydenko in the final eight, and then coming from a 4-1 final set deficit to beat Fernando Gonzalez in the semi-finals.
This would earn him a shot at Roger Federer in the final. The great Swiss, whose quest to win the French Open trophy ended at the hands of Nadal in the last four years, this time faced a much easier opponent in his quest to finally capture the only trophy that was missing from his cabinet.
Ultimately, Federer would defeat Soderling in straight sets, to not only finally complete the collection, but also equal (and later break) the record of 14 major titles which was held by Pete Sampras. Thus, Federer was able to write his name into the history books, where his name will forever remain.
Soderling’s run into the final set the precedence for a briefly stellar career. Following the French Open, the Swede would reach the fourth round at Wimbledon and the quarter-finals at the US Open, losing on both occasions to Federer.
By the end of the year, Soderling had cracked the Top 10, and qualified for the year-end championships, where he would repeat the dose on Nadal, record his only career victory over Novak Djokovic and reach the semi-finals.
While Soderling continued to impress in 2010, sadly a series of injuries and illnesses would ground him since July 2011 and since then he has never returned to a tennis court. The question now will be whether he can actually return to the professional circuit.
Elsewhere, Novak Djokovic was defeated in the third round by Philipp Kohlschreiber, this marked the last time that Djokovic would be defeated before the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament, while Andy Roddick reached the fourth round for the only time and Andy Murray reached the quarter-finals for the first time.
It should also be noted that Federer almost didn’t win the French Open that year – the day after Soderling defeated Nadal, Federer found himself two sets down against Tommy Haas before recovering to win, and had to do likewise in the semi-finals against future nemesis Juan Martin del Potro.
Nevertheless, Federer is a French Open champion and it could be said that luck won him the tournament – because for the first time since winning his first US Open title in 2004 – Nadal was not there to block him from completing the Career Grand Slam. Instead, it was a man who beat him in the fourth round.
The women: Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova
The women’s tournament also threw around some surprises, but the early rounds did not produce any such results yet, and was dominated by then-World No. 1 Dinara Safina. She was seen as the favourite to win the title this year, despite landing Ana Ivanovic, the defending champion, as a potential quarter-final opponent.
Safina cruised through to the quarter-finals for the concession of just five games, and the title all but looked a mere formality. But just wait until you find out who she had to face in the quarter-finals. And it was not Ivanovic.
Preceding the Soderling/Nadal boilover on May 31, 2009, a woman by the name of Victoria Azarenka stood on the opposite side of the net, facing Ivanovic for the first time at professional level.
The two had previously played a marathon Wimbledon semi-final at junior level, with Ivanovic winning the match with a 12-10 final set (she would go on to lose the final to Kateryna Bondarenko).
But this time, the stakes were higher. At stake was a place in the quarter-finals, where Safina was very likely to await. Azarenka shocked the crowd by taking the first set, 6-2.
She did not relent in the second set, as she went on to win in straight sets and thus end the Serbian’s title defence, and, as Robin Soderling would do later that day, advance to the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.
Ivanovic’s loss denied her a rematch against Safina in the final eight. The Russian must have been very relieved, given Ivanovic had beaten her in the previous year’s final. Instead, Safina had her hands full against Azarenka, losing the first set in a breadstick before going on to win in three sets. The rest, as they say, is history.
Safina then reached the final for the second year in a row, losing unexpectedly to fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, another victim of the Justine Henin era (Kuznetsova had lost the final against her in 2006). What was seen as a certain title did not eventuate for the younger sister of Marat Safin, and her performances at the majors subsequently waned (save for a semi-final at Wimbledon later that year).
Safina’s run aside, this tournament also saw the comeback of Maria Sharapova. The then-three-times major champion had spent almost one year out of the sport due to a serious shoulder injury which saw her ranking drop to World No. 126.
But she would produce a miracle run to the quarter-finals, defeating Nadia Petrova (8-6 in the final set in the second round) and Li Na (despite not winning a game in the second set) en route. Her run to the final eight came to an end with a near-double-bagel defeat to Dominika Cibulkova; nevertheless, Sharapova’s run was one of the great Cinderella stories of the tournament.
Kuznetsova’s run to the title claimed the likes of Agnieszka Radwanska, Serena Williams and Samantha Stosur. It would be the Russian’s second major title, having previously captured the 2004 US Open, and proved that she was not yet a spent force in the sport, despite having endured two title-less seasons in the four years separating her two major titles (she did not win a title in 2005 or 2008).
And so the rest is history. Next, I will flash back to the 2010 tournament, in which Rafael Nadal restored order in emphatic fashion, and also see the run to the title by an unlikely women’s champion. Also watch out for my previews of the men and the women as the 2013 French Open looms.
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