Tsonga Continues Melbourne Success
Tsonga Continues Melbourne Success
Frenchman into Australian Open quarter-finals over Evans
No. 12 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga continued his love affair with the Australian Open on Sunday, not dropping serve as he thrilled the Melbourne crowd with a tight 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 fourth-round win over Daniel Evans on Hisense Arena.
The 2008 runner-up is into the quarter-finals here for the first time since 2013. Tsonga now plays fourth seed Stan Wawrinka for a place in the last four. The Swiss star leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 4-3 and has won their past three matches.
“It’s going to be a tough match,” said Tsonga. “I know he’s playing really good. It’s going to be important for me to be good in this match and play my best level.
“I think I will be ready. It’s going to be a good challenge for me to play against Stan.”
Evans was competing in the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time, having stunned Marin Cilic and Bernard Tomic at Melbourne Park. He had reached his first ATP World Tour final last week in Sydney (l. to Muller).
The Briton continued his hot form against Tsonga, striking first in the tie-break by taking a 3/1 lead and holding his slight advantage the rest of the way. Tsonga responded brilliantly by racing to a 4-0 lead in the second set and ultimately levelling the match at one set each.
The Frenchman broke Evans immediately to start off the third set. Little separated the pair, but that early advantage was all Tsonga needed to take a commanding lead. The fourth set was nearly identical, with Tsonga grabbing an early break and comfortably serving out the match to love to prevail in two hours and 53 minutes.
“Before the match I knew if it started to be really physical, it was going to be on my side, I think,” said Tsonga. “That’s what happened. So the first set was difficult. Then I played pretty strong and made him run a lot in the second set.
“I just served really well, too. Then it was an advantage for me. I didn’t have to defend too many break points. That was an advantage for me.”
The 31-year-old Tsonga, who finished runner-up to Roger Federer in his lone Grand Slam final at Melbourne Park in 2008, is bidding to reach his first major semi-final since Roland Garros 2015, when he fell to Wawrinka.