Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has defeated Viktor Troicki of Serbia in the second round of the Sony Open on Saturday. Tsonga won the match in the straight sets by 7-6(6), 6-3.
This was Tsonga’s 6th match against Troicki. In the earlier 5 matches, Troicki had defeated Tsonga 3 times.
In the 3rd round, Tsonga will face Jarkko Nieminen of Finland. Nieminen secured a berth in the third round by defeating Martin Klizan of Slovakia.
In the very first game of the match, Tsonga’s serve was broken. Troicki served out the next game with ease and Tsonga was down by 0-2.
The Frenchman equalized with a serve break in the 6th game. Both the players held their serve in the next two games and the scorecard was showing 4-4 before the start of the 9th game.
In the 9th game, Tsonga committed a couple of unforced errors at a crucial moment which helped Troicki in getting his second breakthrough in the match.
However, the Italian player couldn’t maintain that lead and dropped his serve in the 10th game which equalized the scores again.
In the next couple of games, there were no serve breaks which meant that the scores were tied and there would be a tie breaker.
In the tie breaker, Troicki couldn’t handle the pressure well. A couple of loose shots by him at the end allowed Tsonga to seal the set.
Just like the first set, there was a serve break in the first game of the second set as well, but, this time it was Troicki who dropped his serve. He was leading by 40-15 at one point of time, but, Tsonga pulled him back from that stage and played a few fantastic backhand shots to get a breakthrough.
The next 7 games went with the serve and Tsonga was ahead by 5-3 at the end of the 8th game. The Frenchman smashed a couple of winners in the 9th game and finished off the match with another breakthrough.