Tsonga ousted at Japan Open

Oct 03, 2013 |

TOKYO

Former champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga crashed out of the Japan Open in the second round on Wednesday, ambushed 6-4, 7-6 by Croatia’s Ivan Dodig in the tournament’s first major upset.
Top seed Juan Martin del Potro thrashed fellow Argentine Carlos Berlocq 6-2, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the $1.43 million event in Tokyo before Tsonga, still feeling his way back from a knee injury, was unceremoniously bundled out.
The world number eight, champion in 2009, retired from the second round at Wimbledon and only returned at Metz a week ago, reaching the final. He beat fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils in the first round in Tokyo but never got out of the blocks against Dodig.
Dodig’s persistence forced Tsonga into a string of wild misses, the end coming when he dumped a forehand into the net to surrender the second-set tiebreak 7-5 and gift-wrap the Croat a second victory in two meetings.
Del Potro looked a different player in his first meeting with countryman Berlocq.
“I played very solid,” the 2009 US Open champion told reporters.
“I served well, hit my forehand really well and tried to be aggressive. I played much better than yesterday,” he added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/259739" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d8ac399b55586a5e8584dca5ef68a566" value="form-d8ac399b55586a5e8584dca5ef68a566" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80482587" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>