{"id":775,"date":"2008-01-20T23:45:52","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T07:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/?p=775"},"modified":"2008-01-20T23:45:52","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T07:45:52","slug":"coming-out-party-for-tsonga-and-kohlschreiber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/coming-out-party-for-tsonga-and-kohlschreiber\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Out Party for Tsonga and Kohlschreiber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men’s Australian Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday morning, January 27, at 12:30am (PST)\/3:30am (EST)\/9:30am (CET). We’ll stay up if you’ll stay up.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Philipp Kohlschreiber have performed well at the Australian Open. We’re still not sure about Roger Federer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is Tsonga Only a Serve and Volleyer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I let out a sigh of relief after David Nalbandian<\/strong> lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero<\/strong> by the score of 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 in the fourth round at the Australian Open. It\u2019s not that I wish David any ill will, I\u2019d love to see him win a slam, but I would have felt like a total idiot if he\u2019d won this tournament because it would have been the third time I doubted him and paid for it. I didn\u2019t pick him for my fantasy tennis team in Madrid or Paris and that knocked me out of the ATP fantasy tennis game top 100.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s up with that lopsided score, and to Ferrero too? Did David\u2019s back spasms finally catch up with him? I couldn\u2019t find any injury information about him and he didn\u2019t talk to the media.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I picked Richard Gasquet<\/strong> to beat Rafael Nadal<\/strong> in the semifinals and now he\u2019s gone. He was beaten by his good friend and countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga<\/strong>, 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-6(6), 6-3 in the fourth round. Tsonga is a serve and volleyer in my mind and I expected the slow court here in Melbourne to limit his results. Either the players are lying and the court is not that slow or Tsonga is a more complete player that I gave him credit for. Let\u2019s see which it is.<\/p>\n

On thing is for sure: Tsonga is driving his opponents crazy. He knocked Andy Murray<\/strong> out in the first round by attacking him nonstop early in the match. Something happened to Gasquet too. How else could you explain 73 net approached in one match. I doubt Gasquet has ever done that before but he had no choice, nothing else was working.<\/p>\n

Tsonga attacked Gasquet early too and he was also winning the baseline game. Gasquet is the shotmaker but it was Tsonga who made the shots in this match. He was up 4-3 in the third set when he ran Gasquet first to one corner then the next and followed that up with a sweet forehand dropshot winner.<\/p>\n

Tsonga is quick and it showed in his defense. In the third set tiebreaker, Tsonga hit his bread and butter shot, an inside out forehand approach. He backed up to get to a deep passing shot then ran to the opposite corner to track down a Gasquet approach. Gasquet followed that up with a pretty hard overhead shot but Tsonga tracked that down too and Gasquet put the ball into the net. On the next point, Tsonga dug another ball out of the corner and Gasquet put the ball into the net again to give Tsonga a set point.<\/p>\n

You can see why Gasquet was trying to attack. He was lucky to stay as close as he did in this match .<\/p>\n

Tsonga is still a bit inexperienced. He ran around his backhand too much and got himself out of position and he wasn\u2019t always sure when he should attack. But all the tools are there and he deals with pressure very well judging by today\u2019s match. He hit three aces when his serve was under pressure early in the fourth set and he hit another passing shot at the attacking Gasquet to win that game. That\u2019s right, at this point Gasquet was attacking and Tsonga staying back. So much for being a serve and volleyer.<\/p>\n

Federer Wins \u2013 Roddick Doesn\u2019t<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tsonga is the second player to have a coming out at this party. The first was Philipp Kohlschreiber<\/strong> who beat Andy Roddick<\/strong> in the third round by taking the fifth set 8-6. Roger Federer<\/strong> almost suffered the same result at the hands of Janko Tipsarevic<\/strong> before finally winning 10-8 in the fifth set.<\/p>\n

Kohlschreiber played a very good match and Roddick couldn\u2019t do much about it. The question is: Was this a coming out party for Tipsarevic too?<\/p>\n

No. Kohlschreiber should keep moving up the ranking but Tipsarevic will most likely continue to ping pong back and forth between the 40\u2019s and 60\u2019s in the rankings.<\/p>\n

Tipsarevic played inspired tennis but Federer converted exactly five of 21 break points. That is bad tennis. And he had problems with his forehand. You think David Ferrer<\/strong> and Rafael Nadal<\/strong> – those energizer bunnies of the baseline – didn’t take note of that? Nadal can\u2019t pass Federer in the rankings here even if he wins the title but I\u2019m tellin\u2019 ya, he can taste that number one ranking.<\/p>\n

Blake Takes Advantage<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Blake<\/strong> beat Marin Cilic<\/strong> by the score of 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals and that\u2019s exactly where he should be. Both Ivan Ljubicic<\/strong> and Fernando Gonzalez<\/strong> were knocked out before Blake could meet up with them and that\u2019s what we call the luck of the draw. Blake got to the fourth round here last here so it\u2019s fair enough to expect him to reach the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

Lest you think I\u2019m being too demanding, I do not expect him to beat his next opponent: Federer.<\/p>\n

Okay, people, here\u2019s the question of the day: Can Federer win this tournament or not? Please chime in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join us for the men’s Australian Open final! We\u2019ll be blogging live on Sunday morning, January 27, at 12:30am (PST)\/3:30am (EST)\/9:30am (CET). We’ll stay up if you’ll stay up. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Philipp Kohlschreiber have performed well at the Australian Open. We’re still not sure about Roger Federer. Is Tsonga Only a Serve and Volleyer? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,21,23,33,34,42,52,54,55,57,78,81,82,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andy-murray","category-atp-players","category-australian-open","category-david-ferrer","category-david-nalbandian","category-fernando-gonzalez","category-ivan-ljubicic","category-james-blake","category-janko-tipsarevic","category-jo-wilfried-tsonga","category-philipp-kohlschreiber","category-rafael-nadal","category-richard-gasquet","category-roger-federer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}