"Pim-Pim" Dominates Against Garcia
from the official Stockholm Open website
26 October 2004

Joachim ”Pim-Pim” Johansson moved on to the second round via a comfortable win against Adrian Garcia.

The tall Swede, ranked #11 in the world, was in charge all the way from the start of the match. Already in the first game, Johansson broke Garcia’s serve. From there on, the Chilean was never really close to threaten Johansson, who was hammering down serves and forehands. In the second set, the story repeated itself with the Chilean dropping his serve already in the first game. With another break of serve, the winning score line was 6-4, 6-2.

"I got a good start in both sets and then I could put all focus on my service games", Johansson says.

Last year, Johansson was an outsider who reached the quarterfinals. This year, the Swede has made very fast progress in the rankings and is just outside the top 10.

"I didn’t write as many autographs last year, that’s for sure", Johansson said with a smile on his face.

Johansson has played in Stockholm every year since 1997, when he made his debut in the qualifying event at a mere age of 15.

"This tournament means a lot to me. I have dreamt about playing on Center Court since I was very young", the top ranked Swede says.

Next up for Johansson is Jan-Michael Gambill, a player that "Pim-Pim" dispatched in three sets at the US Open two months ago. The two will play on Thursday.