Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s Paris Masters win on Sunday made it six Europeans into the season-closing Masters Cup in Shanghai, with Andy Roddick and Juan Martin Del Potro the only exceptions in the elite eight-man field.
Tsonga gatecrashed his way into the showdown in China with a thrilling 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over defending champion David Nalbandian of Argentina in the final of the last regular season tournament in front of 14,000 fans at the Bercy Sport stadium.
The 23-year-old from Le Mans was the first Frenchman to win in Paris since Sebastien Grosjean in 2001 and in Shanghai from Sunday to Nov. 16 he will join defending champion Roger Federer, world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, Djokovic, Andy Murray, Nikolay Davydenko, Roddick and Argentinian Del Potro.
It will be Tsonga’s first appearance in the Masters Cup which groups the eight best players over the ATP season.
Tsonga burst onto the world stage by reaching the Australian Open final in January where he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets, but the injury-prone Frenchman was again sidelined during the summer with a knee injury that required an operation.
But Tsonga battled through the adversity to reach the final by defeating three top tenners in a row — Djokovic, to whom he lost in the Australian Open final, American Roddick, in a three-set thriller, and James Blake in a semi-final blow out.
It was the biggest win of his career to date and sets him up for the first time for a crack at the biggest tournament in tennis outside of the four Grand Slam events.
“It’s an amazing turnaround,” he said. “Everything that has happened to me in the last few months is just incredible,” he said.
“Less than two years ago I was ranked 250th in the world and I was playing in small clubs in small tournaments and I really wanted to get up to this level one day,” Tsonga said. “Now here I am heading for Shanghai to play against the best players in the world.”
In China Tsonga will be bidding to become the first Frenchman to win the Masters Cup and given the late season injury woes that have bedevilled the top names, he might just stand a chance.
Both Nadal and Federer were forced to withdraw from the Paris Masters, the Spaniard crippled by pain in his right knee, and Federer stricken by back pains.
Roddick, Davydenko and Murray have also been injured recently, while Djokovic is far from the kind of form that won him the Australian Open in January and Del Potro has other things on his mind with the Davis Cup final against Spain in Mar del Plata looming large on the horizon just after Shanghai.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Matvei Michkov did not score on Monday, but the Philadelphia rookie had a hand in both goals as hosts the Flyers earned a 2-1 victory over the Nashville Predators. Ryan Poehling and Jamie Drysdale got the goals for the Flyers (31-36-9, 71 points), who won their third straight. Michkov and Travis Konecny assisted on both. Ivan Fedotov stopped 28 shots to earn his first win since March 1, ending a personal six-game losing streak. Zachary L’Heureux got the lone goal for Nashville. Michael McCarron and Brady Skjei got the assists for the Predators (27-39-8, 62 points), who have just four goals in their
RSS