Robin Soderling arrived at light work off base favored Gael
Monfils to win the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.It was his first Masters Series
title.The Swedish world number five ran out a 6-1 7-6 (7/1) victor over
Monfils, who was clearly feeling the effects of his hard-fought semi-final win
over Roger Federer.
Soderling, who will now visit London
for the season-ending World Tour Finals, aged top of Monfils' serve early and
allayed to a comfortable first-set win inside 27 minutes.
Monfils looked more confident in the second set, especially
as Soderling's normally reliant first serve eluded him slightly, and the set
edged into a tie-break.
As in the first set, though, Soderling was able to dominate
his opponent and cantered to a 7-1 win to arrest the £380,000 prize."It
feels great," Soderling said afterwards. "I don't have a very good
record in finals, especially here in Paris.
"I lost two finals at Roland Garros. Of course it's
great to reach the final in a grand slam and also in a Masters 1000k, but I
think a final is one match you really want to win."I'm really happy that I
played well, and now I'm here winning the title.
"When I won that last point, I just felt so happy and I
felt so relieved. I wanted to win such."Monfils admitted his three-set
epic with Federer had robbed him of some of his energy reserves.
He said: "Yesterday I used up a lot of energy, and
today I wasn't able to find the extra stamina that I'd have needed to be more
competitory."
Media Limited . All right reserved
