Soderling and Stosur Return "Home" to Roland Garros
A year ago, Robin Soderling played an incredible match to knock Rafael Nadal out of the 2009 French Open and then continued his surprising run all the way to the final. On the women’s side, Australian, Samantha Stosur, known as a doubles star, became a clay court
queen when she reached the semis at a Grand Slam for the first time at the 2009 French Open. Since then, both Soderling and Stosur have followed up their impressive play at Roland Garros with strong results. Now that they are back on “home soil” at the 2010 French Open, Soderling and Stosur appear to have picked up where they left off last year.
So why the major improvement in the play of Stosur and Soderling, especially at Roland Garros? It seems to all be, or at least mostly, “between the ears.” Clearly, both Soderling and Stosur have gotten themselves in very strong physical shape, as well as having worked hard on the weaknesses in their games. However, it’s the confidence that they’ve acquired coupled with their ability to choose the rights shots during the critical moments in a match which has elevated their play against the top players. With confidence, a player also manages to recover from a few nervous moments and eventually close out the match, something both Soderling and Stosur have done the past couple days in their matches against Roger Federer and Serena Williams, respectively. But there are two more matches to go for each of them...
So why the major improvement in the play of Stosur and Soderling, especially at Roland Garros? It seems to all be, or at least mostly, “between the ears.” Clearly, both Soderling and Stosur have gotten themselves in very strong physical shape, as well as having worked hard on the weaknesses in their games. However, it’s the confidence that they’ve acquired coupled with their ability to choose the rights shots during the critical moments in a match which has elevated their play against the top players. With confidence, a player also manages to recover from a few nervous moments and eventually close out the match, something both Soderling and Stosur have done the past couple days in their matches against Roger Federer and Serena Williams, respectively. But there are two more matches to go for each of them...
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