TENNIS in DEPTH.

Robin Soderling won the battle of the Swedes against Andreas Vinciguerra to reach the final of the Catella Swedish Open in Bastad on Saturday.

The French Open finalist, who will face Argentina’s Juan Monaco in Sunday’s showpiece, met strong resistance from the wild card in the second set before coming through 6-1 7-6 (8/6).

Monaco reached his second ATP Tour final of the season with a stunning 6-0 6-2 victory over defending champion Tommy Robredo.

In beating the third seed, Monaco ensured there would be a non-Spanish winner of the clay-court event for the first time in five years.

Second seed Soderling and Monaco have met four times before, with the Swede winning the last three. Their last match also came in Sweden, with Soderling triumphing in Stockholm last year.

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Top seed Fernando Verdasco limped out of the Catella Swedish Open quarter-finals on Friday but defending champion Tommy Robredo made it safely through to the last four.

Verdasco, the world number nine, pulled a calf muscle in the first game of his match against Juan Monaco and although he attempted to soldier on, the Spaniard was 1-6 1-3 down when he called it a day after 55 minutes.

“I had real pain when serving, especially since the injury was in my my right leg,” said Verdasco.

“It was not easy for me – I tried to continue playing but when I saw that I had no chance to win I retired before injuring myself further.”

Monaco will now face Robredo, who claimed the title in Bastad last year and in 2006.

The third seed needed 77 minutes to see off Georgia’s Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-4 6-0 and is on course for a third claycourt title of 2009.

In the other half of the draw, French Open finalist Robin Soderling thrilled his home crowd by edging a tight match against another Spaniard, Nicolas Almagro.

The world number 12 was given a tough workout but crucially claimed three breaks to one to win 7-5 6-3.

It was later confirmed that a Swede would compete in the final when wildcard entrant Andreas Vinciguerra, ranked 460 in the world, stunned fourth seed Jurgen Melzer 2-6 6-4 6-3 to set up a clash with Soderling.

Vinciguerra, whose ranking peaked at 33 in 2001, has twice reached the final at Bastad but the last occasion was in 2000. His only ATP Tour tournament victory came on the hard courts of Copenhagen in the same year.

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World No. 61 Juan Monaco swiftly put behind him the disappointment of losing two Davis Cup rubbers at the weekend by booking his place in the second round of the Catella Swedish Open. The Argentine ousted his eighth-seeded countryman Maximo Gonzalez 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-1 on Tuesday at the ATP World Tour 250 clay-court tennis tournament in Bastad.

The 25-year-old Monaco twice trailed by a break of serve in the first set before clinching it on a tie-break and rallied from dropping the second set to break serve three times in the deciding set to seal victory after two hours and 18 minutes. The Tandil native is making his fourth appearance in Bastad and reached the quarter-finals on his debut in 2004 (l. to F. Gonzalez).

Argentine qualifier Guillermo Canas dismissed the challenge of Bulgarian wild card Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 7-6(2) to set up a second-round meeting with Swede Andreas Vinciguerra. Former World No. 8 Canas, currently at No. 151 in the South African Airways 2009 ATP Rankings, is making his fourth appearance in Bastad and was a quarter-finalist in 2002 (l. to Calleri).

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Juan Monaco of Argentine defeated #4 Andy Murray at the Rome Masters 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, in the biggest win of his career. In perfect weather conditions, the Argentine qualifier served at 4-3 in the third set, but was broken and went down 5-4 to Murray. It appeared as if Murray would go on to win the match when at 5-5 he was broken for the 6th time, and Monaco served out the match.

Monaco defeated Niclos Kiefer in the first round, and is making his mark on the ATP tour. He has been touted as ‘the player to watch’ by several tennis experts.

Other seeded players going down to defeat today were Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Nicolay Davydenko and David Ferrer.

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