Jo-Wilfried Tsonga battles past Fabio Fognini to clear the opening round – Rogers Cup 2011
World number 16, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, cleared the opening round of Rogers Cup, after defeating the unseeded Italian competitor, Fabio Fognini, on Monday afternoon.
The contest took place on the hard courts of the Uniprix Stadium in Montreal, Canada, as part of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Masters Series. The Frenchman took one hour and thirty five minutes of play to wind
up victory in straight sets 6-4, 7-6(0), getting through to the second round of the tournament.
Seeded at number 13 in the tournament, Tsonga continued his brilliant form to outplay the Italian in a convincing manner. Fognini, who is more renowned for his skills on the clay courts, failed to pose some serious challenge to
Tsonga in the matchup. The Italian had a chance to bounce in the contest midway in the opening set but he wasn’t in a good position to capitalize upon his opponent’s mistakes in the game.
Despite of a par serve precision of 51 per cent, Tsonga secured 21 out of 29 first serve points in the matchup and registered three out of nine break points en route to victory. The Italian opponent excelled him in winning the
serve points, bagging 26 points in the contest but failed to craft sufficient serve breaks in the game to take down the French opponent.
The opening set took off with a cracking serve break from Tsonga, to propel him to a 3-0 lead early in the matchup. A regular game followed to take the scores to 5-3, when Fognini converted his first break opportunity to make his
way right back in the game but failed to sustain momentum in the game, dropping serve in the very next game to lose the first set at 4-6.
The Italian competitor broke Tsonga in the very first game of the following set but the French replied with the same in the 10th game to level the scores once again. Fognini went on neck-to-neck with Tsonga, dragging
the second it into the tie breaker round but lost all his steam by then and crumbled without presenting any resistance in the decider. Tsonga concluded victory at 7-6(0) to move into the second round of Rogers Cup, where he will face the Australian wildcard,
Bernard Tomic. The Aussie won his opening round match against the lucky loser from Chinese Taipei, Yen-Hsun Lu, in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-3, to book a date with Tsonga in the second round.
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