Paris: Robin Soderling's upset of Rafael Nadal cleared a path to the French Open final. The player who took advantage: Soderling. The surprising Swede extended his improbable Roland Garros run by beating Fernando Gonzalez in a seesaw semi-final on Friday, winning 6-3, 7-5, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4.
Soderling let a big lead slip away when he lost his serve in the final game of the third and fourth sets. He fell behind 3-love and 4-1 in the final set, but down the stretch came up with the kind of shotmaking that has carried him through the tournament, and he swept the last five games.
On Sunday, the No. 23-seeded Soderling will play the winner of the second semi-final between No. 2 Roger Federer and No. 5 Juan Martin del Potro.
"I have very far to go," Soderling said.
Federer is trying to complete a career Grand Slam and win his 14th major title, which would tie Pete Sampras' record.
Federer has been beaten at the French Open each of the past four years by Nadal, the four-time defending champion who lost to Soderling in the fourth round Sunday.
Soderling never advanced beyond the third round in his previous 21 major tournaments, and he has never won a clay-court title.
The victory over Gonzalez was only Soderling's fourth in a five-set match.
The 3½-hour semi-final had lots of drama, and a little controversy. Gonzalez challenged a call late in the fourth set, contending a shot by Soderling had landed wide, and when the umpire denied his appeal, Gonzalez sat on the disputed mark in the clay to smooth it out.
Gonzalez won the game anyway, but played the rest of the match with dirt caked on his shorts.
The quality of play was high throughout. Soderling had 74 winners, including 16 aces, and Gonzalez totaled 59 winners, including 22 aces.
The all-Russian women's final Saturday will renew a rivalry dating back a decade, and Svetlana Kuznetsova hopes to fare better than the first time she faced Dinara Safina.
They were juniors then — Kuznetsova from St. Petersburg, Safina from Moscow, both with athletic bloodlines.
"I was like 12 or 13, and Dinara was an unbelievable girl," Kuznetsova said. "She's one year younger than me. I had no chance playing against her. I remember I lose to her 6-1, 6-love or something."
They've played each other many times since, and Safina leads 7-4 in tour-level matches. Saturday's showdown will be the biggest yet, with a Grand Slam title at stake.
It would be the first for Safina and the second for Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion.
"It's definitely going to be stress, definitely going to be emotion, definitely going to be business. Everything," the seventh-seeded Kuznetsova said.
They've been the best players on clay this year, meeting on the surface twice in finals last month. Kuznetsova beat Safina for the title at Stuttgart, Germany, then lost when they played in the final in Rome a week later.
Since climbing to the top of the rankings in April, Safina has reached the final in the four tournaments she has played, all on clay.
"She's going to be favorite to win," Kuznetsova said. "She's No. 1. She has played an unbelievable season."
In Safina's 21 matches as the top-ranked player, she has lost only once — to Kuznetsova.
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