Jo-Wilfried Tsonga storms over Javier Marti in opening round fixture – Valencia Open 2011
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, French world No.8, destroyed his opening round counterpart, Javier Marti, Spaniard, in hard hitting three set hard court match at Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia, Spain on Tuesday, 1st November.
Struggling in the opening set, the Frenchman struck back in the second and third to finish off the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 in two hours and 17 minutes.
Marti started of the match with serving out the match starter rolling down the scoreboard, 1-0. Tsonga, replied back right away, winning game two and levelling up, 1-1, Frenchman stood back to return once again. Battling out games
and wins of respective serves, the two competitors evened up again at 2-2, 3-3 and then on 4-4 before the lower ranked Spaniard struck.
Serving out game nine, 5-4, Marti struck as he broke the higher ranked Frenchman inn game ten, 6-4, to finish off the first set and led the match, 1-0.
Moving on with the second set, Marti served first again to take the lead, however, broke down as Tsonga ripped apart the Spaniards opening serve of the second set and served out game two to lead the set, 2-0. Serving next, the
lower ranked Spaniard bagged his first win of the set, 2-1, and stood to return again.
Maintaining the two games lead, Tsonga pulled off winning another game, 3-1, however, the Spaniard struck back next as he served out game five, 3-2, and broke the French world No.8 in game six to level up the scores, 3-3. The play
slowed down as the two won games on respective serves and levelled up at 4-4 and then at 5-5.
Continuing with game 11 of set two, Marti served, however, was brought down hard as the Frenchman broke, 6-5, and served out game 12 to finish off the set winning 7-5. Levelling up the set scores, 1-1, the two moved onto play the
decider set with Marti to continue serving first.
Tsonga, gaining his momentum, went splendid as he broke the lower ranked Spaniard once again in the set opening serve. Serving out game two, Tsonga outgunned his competitor to lead the set, two games to zero. Finally, rolling down
his side of the scoreboard, the 19-year-old Spaniard pulled of a winner, 2-1, yet could not break back.
Serving out game 4, 3-1, Tsonga overpowered the world No.182 in game five, breaking the 19-year-old, 4-1, and serving out the sixth to lead the set 5-1. With just one more win to finish off the fixture, world No.8 served out his
next service game captivating the set 6-2, and the set with a strong comeback.
Through into the next stage, the second seeded Frenchman will now play against American, Sam Querrey, to battle out the quarter-final round seat of the ATP World Tour 500 event.
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