Tennis: Del Potro outlasts Tsonga at Masters Cup
By PAUL ALEXANDER
Associated Press
SHANGHAI, China — Juan Martin del Potro beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) Tuesday in a Masters Cup match between two of tennis' rising stars.
The victory was Del Potro's first in the Gold Group after losing his opener, while Tsonga fell to 0-2 and close to elimination from the season-ending tournament for the world's top eight players.
With the crowd solidly behind him, Tsonga had 10 aces in his first four service games. But inconsistency — and solid play from Del Potro — plagued the Frenchman. One early stretch went: unforced error, ace, ace, double fault, unforced error.
The two players, both making their Masters Cup debuts, exchanged early service breaks in both sets and never yielded more than two points in any other service game.
Tsonga, who sat out three months with a knee injury earlier in the year and had to win the Paris Masters nine days ago just to qualify, led 3-1 in the first tiebreaker. But Del Potro ran off six of seven points, including a pair of service winners, to finish off the set.
Del Potro, ranked 65th on July 7 before a 23-match winning streak helped carry him to No. 8, ripped a backhand winner on the run to pull ahead in the second tiebreaker 4-2.
An overhead winner set up triple match point at 6-3. Tsonga blasted an ace and a service winner before hitting a forehand under pressure into the net to end it.
"I was so nervous," Del Potro said.
Plagued by a sore toe since the U.S. Open, the youngest player in the field at 20 said he was trying to win while also trying to save some energy for Argentina's Davis Cup final against Spain on Nov. 21-23.
Argentina's chances got a boost when top-ranked Rafael Nadal, who sat out the Shanghai event in hopes that the rest would allow him to lead Spain's team, announced late Monday he would have to take off another three to six weeks.
Novak Djokovic of Serbia was to play Nikolay Davydenko of Russia later Tuesday.
Roger Federer and Andy Roddick, who lost their first matches in the Red Group, play each other Wednesday, while Andy Murray and Gilles Simon will also play.
