Tennis world shocked at Rafa exit

Soderling now expected to win French Open

PARIS, June 1, 2009 (AFP) - French sports newspaper L'Equipe described it as an 'Earthquake' and Roland Garros was on Monday still reeling from the aftershock of Rafael Nadal's first ever defeat here.

Nadal's compatriot, and Spain's Davis Cup captain Albert Costa, said he was stunned both by the performance of unheralded winner Robin Soderling as well as Nadal's sub-par, fourth round display.

"Rafa wasn't at 100 percent," said Costa, the champion here in 2002 of the four-time winner who had reeled off 31 successive wins until he ran into the 24-year-old Soderling.

"The problem wasn't physical but rather on his racquet. He didn't have the usual power on his strokes and he was a long way off his best level. I really didn't expect him to lose. I saw him comfortably winning a fifth title."

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u00a0Rafael Nadal

Soderling's 6-2, 6-7 (2/7), 6-4, 7-6 (7/2) win also helped countryman Bjorn Borg keep his share of the record of four consecutive wins at Roland Garros achieved from 1978-1981.

"If you can beat Nadal on clay in Paris then you can beat anybody," six-time winner Borg told the Expressen newspaper.

"I think that Soderling can now win the French Open."

One of the beneficiaries of Nadal's loss is Russian 10th seed Nikolay Davydenko, who was expecting to tackle the great Spaniard in the quarter-finals, but instead will come up against Soderling.

"Everybody is shocked. Everybody was waiting for Nadal to win again. But he lost," said Davydenko.

"Against Soderling I don't need to run so much and play long rallies. There will be short points. Not like against Nadal when you have to run 20 minutes for one point and then you are already tired."

Nadal's eighth-seeded compatriot Fernando Verdasco, who was beaten by Davydenko, believes both the Russian and Soderling employed the right game plan.

"Rafa and myself didn't have a good day. We were playing too short. Soderling and Davydenko were playing very cleverly and they were playing very hard and very flat, and I had no way out," said Verdasco.

"They like to step into the court. Rafa and myself, we don't like it when the ball bounces that way. I saw it was the same for Rafa. It was the same for me. Against Davydenko it was like playing ping-pong."

Former women's number one Maria Sharapova believes Nadal will come back stronger from his shock exit.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and for his fight and for the way he deals with everything and just goes on court and performs and gives it 120 percent every time," she said.

"Sometimes you leave that court with a win and sometimes you lose. It's just part of the game. He has a great head on his shoulders. I'm sure he'll be fine."

Soderling's compatriot Mats Wilander, the winner of three French Open titles, believes Nadal came up against a player who refused to believe he could lose.

"If Nadal couldn't play his game it was because he was facing someone who was convinced that he could be beaten," Wilander told L'Equipe.

"Rafa wins at least 90 percent of his matches before going onto the court. I'm not saying that he was scared of Soderling but I am certain that he feared the damage that the Swede's game could do."