French Open Betting / Ben Caudell / 04 June 2010 /

Ben Caudell looks at the semi-final between Robin Soderling and Tomas Berdych and sees plenty of games!

Robin Soderling (SWE) v Tomas Berdych (CZE)
We are in for a real treat on Friday with all eyes focusing on the first semi-final of the day taking place between last year's losing finalist Soderling and this year's dark horse Berdych.
Last year in the fourth round of Roland Garros, Soderling broke Rafael Nadal's unbeaten record in Paris and still remains the only player to have ever defeated the Spaniard at this event.
On Tuesday, in his quarter-final match-up (itself a replay of last year's final against Roger Federer), the Swede was in immense form as he ended the world no.1's formidable six year run of semi-final showings by powering his way to a four set victory. It was his first win against Federer in 12 attempts.
Berdych has been a revelation this tournament and is still to drop a set, the Czech No.1's serving has been immense and he leads the tournament in first serve points won (88%). Remarkably he has only been broken three times at Roland Garros, two of which were against his second round opponent, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, and once against Andy Murray. Soderling has been broken seven times.
The Swede leads the head-to-head series 6-4, with one match apiece on the clay. Berdych defeated the Swede 6-2, 6-2 in their most recent match in March's Miami Master Series event on the hard courts. Today's match will be a different story, both players are playing some of the best tennis of their careers, Berdych has won three of his last four against top-ten players (Murray, Federer, Soderling) the same for Soderling (Federer, Murray, Nikolay Davydenko) each player's loss coming against Andy Roddick. Berdych has the apparent better clay court form with a 9-1 record compared with Soderling's 6-4, however this statistic is reversed when it comes to form at the French Open; Soderling is 9-1 and Berdych 6-4.
It is extremely difficult to go against Soderling after the Federer defeat. He could quite easily perform to the same degree against Berdych on Friday so watch out for an explosive start. He is far more used to playing on the Philippe Chartrier court than Berdych and has experience in reaching a Grand Slam final.
But Berdych hits flatter and through the ball more than most and this may be where he chisels out an edge over his opponent. Soderling's best results on clay have come against players who hit excessive topspin. This type of player suits Soderling's high take-back technique on both forehand and backhand, from which he generates his extreme power. Soderling will find it hard to get the same sort of power against Berdych so we could witness a lot more unforced errors coming from the racket of the Monte Carlo resident.
I expect Berdych to take at least one set off the Swede and if he serves as well as he has done all tournament we could see another favourite drop out.

Selections: Back Tomas Berdych @ [3.0] to win match (small bet)
Back Berdych +5.5 Games @ [1.5]
Back Over 39.5 Games @ [1.9]

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