Johansson outpowers Nadal
from If... Stockholm Open Official Site
11 Oct 2006

Johansson outpowers Nadal Joachim "Pim-Pim" Johansson beat Rafael Nadal 6-4, 7-6 in a crowd-pleasing thriller. Johansson, who has worked hard to come back from injury, played at the top of his game to win his "biggest victory so far" in his career.

The last centre court match on Wednesday evening was the second-round match between World no. 2 Rafael Nadal and Joachim "Pim-Pim" Johansson.

Nadal is mostly known for dominating on clay, but he won the title in Dubai where he beat Roger Federer in a three-set final and was thus looking to win his second hard court title of the year here in Stockholm. Johansson, on the other hand, is battling hard to come back from injury and his win against Italian Davide Sanguinetti in the first round was an important step in the right direction.

Nadal showed what a pro he is and came out pumped for the match and took the first game easily, but Johansson showed determination as well, hitting four aces to level the score at 1-1. It was obvious from the start that Pim-Pim was not ready to engage in long rallies against the young Spaniard. Instead, he aimed to go for the early winners.

Success came quickly when he broke Nadal to take a 2-1 lead of the first set after a fantastic game where Johansson hit winner after winner.

At this point of the match Nadal's quick feet proved no match for Johansson's rocket-like serves and forehand winners. The tall Swede even hit a crowd-pleasing 207 kph (129 mph) ace on his second serve. Both players then held their serve until Johansson was serving for the set at 5-4 when the Swede saved one break point to take the first set 6-4 on his third set point.

Rafael Nadal struggled to find his rhythm due to Pim-Pim Johansson's consistent play. The Swede came out in the second set the way he played in the first, on fire, as he broke Nadal in the first game of the second set. Rafael, always a fighter, refused to give up and came back strong by winning seven consecutive points to hold serve and get three break points only to see Johansson pick up his play to save all three. However, Nadal eventually won the game on his fifth break point to level the set at 2-2.

Johansson picked up his level of play once more and the two players followed each other until Pim-Pim served to stay in the set at 5-6. By know Pim-Pim was less of a threat to break Nadal's serve, it was rather Rafael who was threatening the break the Swede's service games as Johansson was perhaps showing small signs of fatigue due to his lack of matches this year. However, after one hour and forty-two minutes of play, he held his serve to force the tiebreak.

In the tiebreak Johansson started strongly to take a commanding 3-0 lead. Rafael Nadal refused once again to give up and fought hard to come back, but in the end the Swede won the tiebreak 7-4 for a two-set win 6-4, 7-6. For the Swede it was an extremely solid match as he was serving well in both sets and consistently coming up with forehand winners. In the quarter final on Friday Joachim Johansson will face Belgian Kristof Vliegen who earlier today beat Canadian Frank Dancevic.