French Open Quarterfinal Shocker

Amazingly, Roger Federer lost to Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals today. He lost pretty handily, as well. Soderling dropped the first set, but for the remaining three, he rarely let go of control. He was down a break early in the fourth, but he immediately broke back. This puts Federer's record of weeks at the world number one ranking potentially in jeopardy, ends his streak of consecutive grand slam semifinals, could theoretically end his streak of not losing to anyone outside the top or anyone who doesn't go on to win the tournament in a grand slam.

That would actually be interesting - if Soderling makes it to the final to face Nadal, he could ensure that Federer breaks Pete Sampras's record of weeks at number one, but only if he upsets the Spaniard in a second consecutive year and wins the tournament. Still a long ways to go until that happens, though.

The match was extremely high quality from both guys. Federer wasn't allowed to hit quite as many amazing shots as he likes to because Soderling was the one dictating play. He was demolishing his groundstrokes off both sides, and it was all Federer could do to get them back into play. It's the same way that Juan Martin Del Potro beat him in the final of the U.S. Open last year.

You don't often get the chance to say this, but the match swung completely on a single point. At one set all, Soderling was serving down 4-5, to stay in the set. He gets down a break point and after a powerful shot, Federer manages a weak, likely mis-hit reply that just gets over the net. Soderling runs to the forecourt and smacks the ball - a half-smash that has him careful not to stumble and hit the net. The ball soars into the air, and almost certainly looks like a winner. Against any other player, it probably would have been. But Federer dashes out, gets probably eight feet wide of the doubles alley, then jumps, balletic, into the air. He sideswings his racket like he was hitting a kickserve and gets the ball at the height of his swing. It must have been ten or twelve feet off the ground, sending it knifing back into court.

Soderling would have been forgiven if he had turned his back to the net and stalked back to the baseline. He nearly did. But when he saw Federer moving sideways to get that ball, he got back on the balls of his feet and waited to see what he could come up with. His heart must jumped into his throat when he saw the shot that was coming - this is not a shot that you can practice, because this is not a shot that you ever see. A slice smash from a position in the court that no one ever sets foot? It looked like the ball was going to sail over Soderling's left shoulder and drop down into play. Since the shot had such unusual spin, it was tough to know how it was moving through the air and Soderling did not have much time to figure it out.

The Swede responds by jumping up himself and going for a one-handed backhand overhead volley - one of the hardest and most awkward shots in the game for a player with a two-handed backhand to pull off. Since the ball was coming off Federer's racket with such unusual spin, it was difficult to determine how it was moving through the air, and he didn't have much time to figure it out. He threw his racket up and caught the ball, partially off his frame, sending it dribbling back into the open court. Since Federer was by now practically in the luxury boxes in the first row, he couldn't make a play on it.

If Federer had gotten that shot, not only would he have been up two sets to one, but he would demonstrated, as he almost always does, that he is the man. That he will hit shots that you can't even see coming, much less deal with. He would have broken Soderling's spirit, as well as his serve. The Swede's shot was, in fact, somewhat reminiscent of the high backhand overhead that Andy Roddick sent sailing wide in the Wimbledon final last year. Roddick missed, lost the set, and eventually lost the match.

Soderling managed to pull it off - both that difficult shot and the even more difficult victory. For his first time in 13 meetings, he's beaten Roger Federer. The question is whether or not he can build on this victory, or if he'll be sufficiently satisfied - or drained - from that match to let his level of play drop. Last year, he was just happy to be in the finals. This year, maybe he'll want to go a step further.

He'll face Tomas Berdych, who breezed past Mikahil Youzhny in a match that was much more straightforward. The big-hitting Czech might finally be making good on all the talent he's shown himself to possess since upsetting Federer at the 2004 Olympics. But he'll have to bet by Soderling in the semis.

Looking ahead to the second pair of quarterfinal matches on the men's side, it seems almost a sure thing to me that we'll have a Nadal-Djokovic semifinal. I don't expect that Melzer or Almagro can pull off the upset. But I didn't give Soderling a chance, either. We'll just have to see what happens.

On the women's side, I see Jankovic getting past Shvedova, but the Williams-Stosur match is quite an appetizing one. After Stosur got past Justine Henin, she should be brimming with confidence. Could she upset the top seed? As we've seen today, anything can happen.