| By Chris Oddo |
Photo Credit: Mark Howard |
(March 28, 2012)—Rafael Nadal and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga made their tenth career match a perfect ten.
The two-hour, fifty-minute affair came in like a lamb but went out like a lion, with a grimacing Nadal holding on for dear life as Tsonga’s last-ditch forehand found the tape on the Spaniard’s third match point.
“Probably wasn’t one of my best matches, but I am through,” said Nadal.
Nadal’s 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 victory sets up a semifinal with Andy Murray on Saturday.
It looked like it was going to be a short night for the Spaniard, but it turned out to be a lot longer than he would have preferred.
Nadal broke in the first game of the match, after Tsonga tried an ill-advised drop shot off a deep Nadal return at deuce.
Tsonga continued to struggle, and when he failed to convert on two break points in the fourth game of the first set he ended up muttering to himself like a vagrant who wanders the streets in search of stray cats to take in.
Soon after, the Frenchman handed Nadal a break opportunity by double-faulting at 30-30, and quickly found himself down 4-1.
Tsonga made 17 errors in the first set, hit only six winners, and won only two of eleven second serve points.
In the second it looked like it was going to be more of the same.
Tsonga saved a break point in the first game of the second set with some fine serving, but a persistent Nadal kept the pressure on, breaking Tsonga in the fifth game with a perfectly placed topspin return that forced an error from the net-rushing Frenchman.
But Tsonga wouldn’t relent. He kept forcing the issue with big forehands, crazy forays to the net (some worked, some didn’t) and huge serves to keep him within striking distance. All the while Nadal was playing great defense, moving the ball all around the court and allowing Tsonga to beat himself.
But the Frenchman got wise to Nadal’s passive approach, and soon started to take the play to Nadal. Even after failing to convert on break points in the sixth and eighth games of the second set, Tsonga kept pushing, and when Nadal double-faulted at 15-30 while serving for the match, the Frenchman had his window.
“I had a few mistakes,” said Nadal. “5-4 serving for the match, my serve didn’t work well. Against a big player like Jo, you cannot have these types of mistakes.”
An error by Nadal let the Frenchman draw even, and after he held to go up 6-5, Tsonga earned another break point then smashed a forehand winner off Nadal’s second serve to force a third set.
In the third the chaos continued.
Tsonga was down 15-40 in the first game of the decider, but wiggled out of trouble by punching a volley down the line to nullify the first break point. He then hammered a 130 mph ace on the next to stay on serve.
Nadal, who had to have his ailing left knee rubbed on multiple occasions during changeovers during the set, fought off a Tsonga break point attempt in the sixth game, coming to the net to knock off a winner.
Nadal scored the decisive break in the ninth game and took the balls to serve for the match a second time.
In a hotly contested final game that featured two break points saved by Nadal and two match points saved by Tsonga, Nadal finally closed it out when the Frenchman’s forehand couldn’t climb over the net cord on Nadal’s third match point.