By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, February 18, 2017
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga swept a sloppy Tomas Berdych, 6-3, 6-4, scoring his 400th career win and rolling into the Rotterdam final.
Photo credit: Henk Koster/ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga welcomes personal changes while attaining professional milestones.
Tsonga and girlfriend Noura El Shwekh, are expecting their first child in April. Today, the 31-year-old Frenchman expanded his career resume in Rotterdam.
Watch: Tweets of the Week
Tsonga dismantled a sloppy Tomas Berdych, 6-3, 6-4, scoring his 400th career victory and rolling into the Rotterdam final for the first time since 2011.
Tsonga smacked 10 aces and did not face a break point moving to within one win of his first title since the 2015 Metz.
The 14th-ranked Tsonga will play either fellow Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert or third-seeded David Goffin in Sunday’s final. Tsonga has won three of five meetings with Goffin.
Tsonga has not dropped a set advancing to his first final since he fell to Andy Murray in Vienna last October. He’s conquered two opponents who flummoxed him in the past—top-seeded Marin Cilic, who had won five of their prior six meetings and Berdych, who took the court armed with an 8-3 edge over Tsonga.
The man from Le Mans dictated play with his serve and forehand and benefitted from a slew of Berdych unforced errors.
A wayward forehand plagued Berdych from the start. A cluster of three forehand errors put him in a break-point hold in the third game. Berdych bent low for a forehand volley winner staving off break point.
Two games later, Tsonga exploited some sloppy play earning triple break point. Berdych hit a poor drop shot that sat up. Tsonga swooped forward and lifted a one-handed backhand pass down the line breaking at love for 4-2.
Serving for the set, Tsonga got down love-30, but unloaded with heavy serving. Snapping off successive serve winners, Tsonga closed the first set—it was the first set Berdych dropped all week.
Glancing at the strings of his racquet after scattering another forehand error, a rattled Berdych couldn’t shake free mistakes streaming from his frame. Missing the mark on a pair of forehands, Berdych gifted the break and a 1-0 second-set lead to Tsonga.
The 14th-ranked Frenchman backed up the break at 15 for his third straight game.
Staring down another break point in the fifth game, Berdych surprised Tsonga with a bold kick on a second serve. A full-stretch backhand drop volley followed by a sweeping forehand swing volley down the line capped the Czech’s best sequence of the match as he battled through to hold for 2-3.
Using the one-handed slice to alter the rhythm of the rally, Tsonga swatted a two-hander down the line, streaming through a love hold for 4-2.
Berdych blasted his eighth ace down the middle forcing the sixth seed to serve it out.
Tsonga cracked an ace and fired a forehand down the line for triple match point. One final wild forehand from Berdych missed the mark as Tsonga closed in 72 minutes moving to within one win of his first ATP title in 15 months.