The French faithful got what they wanted on Friday at the BNP Paribas Masters, as thirteenth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (pictured) defeated seventh-seeded American Andy Roddick, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(5). In a three set thriller that lasted two hours and 44 minutes, Tsonga delighted the crowd with an impressive performance.Late in the final set, Roddick challenged an out call on his serve while in front 40-0. The scoreboard showed that he had no challenges remaining, but Roddick, Tsonga and even chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani knew he had used only two of his three challenges in the third set.
“But the guy who sits in a box somewhere and puts the Hawkeye replay on, refused to run it because he insisted I had none left, despite the umpire telling him otherwise,” said a frustrated Roddick after the match.
The situation continued to grow worse as both players, mainly Roddick, were getting frustrated as Lahyani was not able to convince the Hawkeye replay guy to let Roddick use the challenge system. After nearly five minutes of craziness, an ATP Supervisor came onto the court and settled the situation, letting Roddick use his one remaining challenge since all parties agreed he had one challenge remaining. With the Paris fans yelling and screaming, Roddick won the challenge and would win the game.
With every out of this world shot that Tsonga would make, the crowd would go wild, but every time Roddick won a point the crowd of 12,000 didn’t get too lively. As the young Frenchman who reached the Australian Open finals earlier this year caved in on victory, leading 6-5, 30-30 on Roddick’s serve, the American would eventually hold serve and send the final set into a tiebreak.
Quickly grabbing a 6-2 lead in the tiebreak, Tsonga had the hometown crowd extremely energized. Tsonga stopped in the middle of the point at 6-2 to challenge and in-call on the right baseline, but the Hawkeye replay system proved the ball did indeed hit the line, giving Roddick the point. Roddick, who clinched a spot at the Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai after beating Gilles Simon in the third round, would win the next two points to fight off his third straight match point. At 6-5, the Frenchman was able to close out the match with an impressive forehand volley winner to reach his first career ATP Masters Series semifinal. As Tsonga showed loads of emotion in admiration of his victory, as if he had just won a grand slam title, the Paris crowd gave him a well-deserved standing ovation for a great deal of time.
During the match, Tsonga hammered 15 aces compared to Roddick’s 14, though Tsonga hit six double faults while the American hit none. Roddick was able to win 77 percent of his first service points, while the Frenchman won just 61 of 91 points on his first serve. Both players broke serve on three occasions, but Roddick will be the disappointed one, as he had 17 opportunities to break serve throughout the match, compared to only five for Tsonga. After beating Roddick for the first time in three career meetings, Tsonga will next tangle with No. 11 seed James Blake for a place in the Paris finals.
Other Quarterfinal Scores from Friday
No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko def. No. 1 Rafael Nadal, 6-1, ret. (knee injury)
No. 8 David Nalbandian def. No. 4 Andy Murray, 7-6(3), 6-3
No. 11 James Blake def. No. 2 Roger Federer, W/O (back injury)
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1 comment:
I think you need to go back and watch the tape of the third set. Roddick incorrectly challenged in the second, fourth and sixth game. This was not a mistake by the review official. This was a mistake by the chair umpire. The umpire neglected to say Roddick has one challenge remaining after the missed challenge on a first serve in the 4th game.
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