Robin Soderling, once in command of his French Open men’s singles semifinal against Fernando Gonzalez, had to feel that the world was crashing down on his slumping shoulders as a Friday afternoon grew late in Paris.

After two hours of dominant play, Soderling had attained a two-set lead against his Chilean challenger, but as soon as the finish line appeared in sight, the ruthless and mechanically precise consistency that had defined a dream run through Roland Garros had suddenly left Court Philippe Chatrier. Increasingly tired in a high-energy match, Soderling watched Gonzalez compete with dogged ferocity, refusing to cooperate with the Swede’s wishes. Instead of having a straight-set victory handed to him, Soderling saw a revived Gonzalez swipe the third set with a break in the twelfth game. In the fourth set, a similar pattern unfolded, as the Chilean broke at 5-4 to send the match to a deciding set. Armed with ample momentum, the 12th-seeded Gonzalez stormed the palace gate in the fifth stanza, breaking and consolidating for a 4-1 lead. Robin Soderling’s two hours of work had been undone and undermined in the next hour of mortal combat. His body sagging and his reserves running near empty, Soderling had to be wondering how a glorious chance at a first-ever Grand Slam final had shockingly slipped away.

But as he goes to sleep on Friday night in Paris, Robin Soderling won’t have to be haunted by the ghosts of what might have been.

Just when his French Open obituary was being prepared, Soderling came back from that 4-1 deficit, ripping off the final five games to pull off a stunning triumph. Once in the penthouse, then in the outhouse, Soderling completed an improbable full-circle journey, defeating Gonzalez, 6-3, 7-5, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4, in 3 hours and 28 minutes before an enraptured audience at Chatrier. The 23rd seed in the men’s draw–who ousted four-time reigning champion Rafael Nadal last Sunday–will now have a chance to take the title Rafa’s owned since 2005.

How well did Soderling play in the first two sets? The Swede, inspired by an onlooking Bjorn Borg, who made the journey to Paris for this semifinal, nailed 70 percent of his first serve, cranked 36 winners, and ceded only 14 unforced errors. Gonzalez’s forehand is one of the most vicious shots in tennis, but Soderling’s forehand is every bit as nasty. In the opening sets, it was Soderling who had more answers, not only because of his forehand, but an ability to lean into a two-handed backhand with equally devastating effect. The two-fisted completeness of Soderling’s game, buttressed by a rock-solid serve that married pace with placement, rocked Gonzalez on his heels, not an easy thing to do in the world of men’s tennis. Gonzalez, for his part, played well enough to beat the younger, previous version of Soderling–you know, the one who had never reached the fourth round of a major tournament coming into Paris for this event–but on a sun-baked Friday afternoon at Roland Garros, the swingin’ Swede was a different man, just as he’s been ever since his knockout of Nadal. Robin Soderling has the same name, but hardly the same game. Now equipped with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of mental toughness–which allowed him to fight back from that 4-1 fifth-set deficit–another Swede has shown the icy interior calm that the Scandinavian nation is known for.

Borg, who had to be pleased beyond measure as he watched from his box seat, is the gold standard of Swedish tennis stars. Mats Wilander–commenting on the match for European television–cultivated a similarly unshakable mindset on his way to seven Grand Slam titles, three of them in 1988. One other Swede who achieved something on the tennis court–namely, an appearance in the 2000 French Open final–is the very same individual who now serves as Soderling’s coach: Magnus Norman, the last Swedish man to make the final at Roland Garros. Soderling might not have been a composed performer when this tournament began on May 24, but after rolling through Rafa, dumping Nikolay Davydenko in the quarterfinals, and now gouging Gonzalez with a remarkable fifth-set fightback from 1-4 down, it’s clear that this 24-year-old has tapped into the ice veins that made Sweden one of the better tennis nations on the planet in prior decades.

If he wins one more match on Sunday, he’ll tap into the championship heritage of Swedish tennis as well. Borg, Wilander, Norman, and the rest of a hopeful nation will be watching.

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