Jo-Wilfried Tsonga registers victory over Ricardo Mello in round two – Australian Open 2012
France’s number one, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, had least difficulty in dumping the 108th ranked Brazilian competitor, Ricardo Mello, in the second round of the Australian Open on Thursday. He took almost two hours to settle
the final scores at 7-5, 6-4, 6-4, to march into the third round of the season-opening Grand Slam event in Melbourne, Australia.
Sixth seed French proved to be a far superior competitor to Mello and excelled over him in every segment of the game. Tsonga cracked in 15 fiery aces and amazingly secured 50 out of 68 first serve points to overwhelm the Brazilian
opponent in an assertive manner. He nailed five out of 10 break points in the matchup, in contrast to Mello’s mere two, to continue his voyage at the mega event in Melbourne.
After a steady start in the opening set, Mello drew first blood in the sixth game, breaking the French serve to lead 4-2. Tsonga made a fitting reply in the very next game to register his first break point of the day and took momentum
from there onwards to strike another serve break in the 11th game to lead 6-5. The sixth seed served out of the opener in a convincing fashion, closing out the first set at 7-5.
Tsonga’s belligerence continued in the following set and he stung another break point right up to lead 2-0. Mello couldn’t recover from the early damage done by the serve break and had to submit the set at 4-6 to trail a 0-2 set
deficit in the competition.
Mello made his last attempt to make a comeback in the competition and broke the French serve in the sixth game of the following set, only to be broken in the very next game to fall back on even terms. Tsonga delivered the decisive
blow in the ninth game and served out of the match at 6-4 to book a place in the third round of the Grand Slam event.
Frederico Gil of Portugal will compete against Tsonga in the third round of the competition. Gill was successful against the 26th seed Marcel Granollers in the second round draw.
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