Sam Querrey upsets Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in second round – Valencia Open 2011
American Sam Querrey pulled a surprise rabbit out of his bag of tricks as he upset second seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of the 2011 Valencia Open in Valencia, Spain on Thursday, 3rd November. In straight, though perhaps not so simple, sets Querrey registered a 7-6(5), 6-2 win over the Frenchman in an hour and seventeen minutes.
This was the pair’s second meeting of their careers. The two had earlier met at the Shanghai Masters in 2010 with the Frenchman rushing to a speedy victory as expected. However, this time around the American was successful in turning the tables around as he brought the head-to-head series to even terms.
Querrey won the toss and opened serve in the first serve with the world number eight closely on his heels. Whether it was Tsonga’s weak attack of Querrey’s impregnable defence, the score progressed on even terms with neither of the two facing or converting breakpoints to their advantage. The neck-to-neck run between the two players kept the score tied at all times, forcing the set into a tiebreaker.
The world number eight lost steam in the tiebreaker as the American rushed to an early 4-1 lead extending it to 6-3 moments later. Although the Frenchman managed to reduce the deficit, bringing the score to 5-6 an errant stroke on his part handed over the tiebreaker to the American who served out the tiebreaker on his serve to clinch an 8-6 victory going one up in the set score.
Although Querrey hit a marginally lower first serve (72 percent) than the Frenchman (91 percent), his second serve win at 86 percent made up for it as he clinched the first set with only two more points than Tsonga.
Down and perhaps broken, Tsonga failed to bounce back in the second set. Unable to save two of four breakpoints faced and his failure to convert the two breakpoint opportunities that he received, the Frenchman came crashing down in the second set. Querrey took an early lead with a break in the third game before cementing it with another in the seventh ultimately serving out the set to a 6-2 victory, sealing his straight sets victory.
Tsonga’s loss, stalls his chances of a qualification at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena in London. The Frenchman’s chances of a qualification now rest at his quarterfinal or higher run at the BNP Paribas Masters.
Querrey, on the other hand, moves into the quarterfinal of the event where he will face off against the top ranked Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro.
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