Reuters
For the first time in his career, Robin Robin Söderling defended an ATP title with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to win his second ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.
I watched most of the match and the one thing the big Swede continues to do well is return huge serves. Maybe because he's so big himself, he has good reach and can get his racquet on more serves than it seems he should. Maybe his anticipation on the return of serve is hard to see from the angles we see it. Whatever the case, his return of serve may be the most underrated part of his big game.
As for Tsonga, he played with little discipline, as has become his way. Yes, it made sense to go for big first shots to try to take control of the point before his opponent, but trying to strike outrageous winners when completely out of position remains the talented Frenchman's biggest weakness.
Still, it was a good match between two power players in the finals of a relatively big event indicating once more than the power game has not completely lost its, well, power in men's tennis.
On another continent, Nicolas Almagro beat Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-3, 7-6(3) to claim the Brasil Open crown, his eighth career title.
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