Kei Nishikori blunts Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to reach the quarter-final round – Australian Open 2012
Crowd at the Hisense Arena in Melbourne Park was in to witness one of the finest displays of high quality tennis action between the Japan’s number one, Kei Nishikori and the sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the fourth round of the Australian Open on Monday. The 26th ranked Japanese registered a huge upset after taking down the world number six, Tsonga, in an enthralling five-setter, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, to march into the quarter-final draw of the tournament.
Nishikori became the first Japanese contestant in reach the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam Down Under in almost 80 years. The 24th seed laboured extremely hard for three hours and 30 minutes to hunt down the hard-hitting Frenchman in a five-set marathon match. He had a sloppy start to the contest and dropped the opening set without much resistance to fall on his back foot early in the match. A tremendous comeback from the 22-year-old Japanese was seen in the following two sets and he broke into a 2-1 lead over the world number six to stun everyone.
The crowd anticipated Tsonga to backfire at his opponent and the sixth seed did the same in the fourth set. Despite losing the previous set with a breadstick, 1-6, Tsonga regrouped in the fourth set and launched a series of forays at the young Japanese. A crushing serve break in the fourth game proved sufficient for Tsonga to close out the fourth set at 6-3, levelling the match scores to 2-2.
The crowd was sitting on the edges of their seats to witness the final set of the match and a nail-biting contest was expected. Nishikori broke the French serve for the sixth time in the match and held his serve to lead 4-1 in the fifth set. He earned three match points at 40-0 in the ninth game but frittered away the first one before converting the next opportunity to conclude his emphatic victory at 6-3. Nishikori will take on the world number four, Andy Murray of Great Briton, in the quarter-final round of the Australian Open later this week. Murray was successful against Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin in the fourth round clash.
Tags: