Tennis
Swede success for Soderling after successful ARAG title quest
By DPA
May 24, 2008, 17:56 GMT

Dusseldorf, Germany - Former tennis power Sweden picked up where it left off 13 years ago at the ARAG World Team Cup, winning a fourth title on Saturday thanks to heroics from Robin Soderling.

The all-rounder starred in both singles and doubles to insure a 2-1 win over Russia on the day.

Sweden also won trophys at the elite eight-nation French Open tune-up in 1988 (v US), 1991 (v Yugoslavia) and 1995 (v Croatia). The nation also finished runner-up to France 22 years ago and in 1999 against Australia.

Russia played the bridesmaid for the fourth time at the event after previous runner-up finishes in 2000 (v Slovakia), 2001 (v Australia) and 2002 (v Argentina).

Soderling started the day's tie with a singles defeat of Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-1 and ended it as he combined with Robert Lindstedt in doubles for a thrilling win over Dmitry Tursunov and Mikhail Youzhny 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 11-9 (match tiebreak).

It was a particularly lucrative week for the doubles pair, who went undefeated and collected 16,000 euros per man in bonuses offered by the event.

Igor Andreev earned Russia's consolation point with his 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory against Thomas Johansson which threw the afternoon into the deciding tiebreaker.

Andreev fired 13 aces in a struggle lasting almost two hours.

Sweden had the benefit of an extra day after booking their finals spot on Thursday.

While the steady Scandinavians were mapping strategy, Russia didn't go through until a loss from rival Spain (who went down in an upset to Italy), squeezing into the title match only on Friday evening after a stressful day of play.

In the tight doubles tie, the Swedes fought back after losing the opening set recovering a break in the second set and levelling on a tiebreaker with an ace from the hot Soderling racquet.

The match-tiebreak third set was a lottery as Russia failed to convert on a match point while Sweden went through on its first opportunity after one hour, 45 minutes.