The Hindu : Sport : Sharapova and Ivanovic set up title clash

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Sharapova and Ivanovic set up title clash

Nirmal Shekar

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga delivers Rafael Nadal a stunning knockout punch

— PHOTO: AP

WAR-CRY: Tsonga is pumped up after trouncing Nadal in the men’s singles semifinals.

Melbourne: In the end, after successfully enacting one of the most astonishing and daring scripts in the Australian Open history, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga appeared to ease into a state of trance, almost sleep-walking to the net to shake hands with his victim, Rafael Nadal.

To the 22-year-old Le Mans resident, the son of a French mother and a Congolese father, those few moments must have seemed like a dream in which things happen in slow motion.

“I don’t know if it is true,” Tsonga told the former champion and television commentator Jim Courier courtside on Thursday night, the cheers of over 15,000 people at the Rod Laver Arena ringing in his ears. “It is,” said Courier, reassuringly.

If this — Tsonga’s 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 semifinal demolition of the three-time French champion and second seed — was the tennis version of the famous 1974 Rumble in the Jungle featuring Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, then, surely, the growl might have been heard in the Congo!

Rare exhibition

And The Greatest would have approved, too. For, the man nicknamed Muhammad Ali — and one who bears an uncanny resemblance to the planet’s most recognisable and celebrated athlete — produced such a rare exhibition of all-court attacking tennis that cheers were replaced by awed gasps in the stands.

It is unlikely that Nadal has ever taken such a pounding at the semifinal stage of a Grand Slam event — and it is even less likely that it might have been authored by someone ranked lower than Tsonga, the 38th best player in men’s tennis.

Tsonga is the third Frenchman to make the men’s final here. The first was Jean Borotra 80 years ago and he was followed by Arnaud Clement, who lost to Andre Agassi seven years ago.

Consistently firing serves at or over 200 kph, leaving the man with the best pair of legs in the game marooned with blistering passes and teasing the Spaniard with delicate drop volleys, Tsonga was the master of all he surveyed. It was a performance par excellence. Le magnifique, his countrymen might have said.

The Frenchman won 30 of the 40 points he contested at the net, hit 49 winners, including 17 aces and faced just three breakpoints. Nadal did not convert any of them. Such was Tsonga’s domination.

Dream final

If ratings-savvy TV producers and dollar-smart marketing messiahs had sat down over a Foster’s or two to write a script for the women’s singles championship, they couldn’t have done better than this.

Maria Sharapova versus Ana Ivanovic is about as glamorous as it gets in women’s tennis. But then, the statuesque blonde Russian and the sultry, cosmopolitan Serb are playing such irresistibly attractive tennis that, come Saturday, fans can be forgiven if they momentarily lose track of the finalists’ glamorous identities and, instead, choose to savour and celebrate the sport for its intrinsic value.

Sharapova, seeded five, and Ivanovic, seeded four, took contrasting routes to the final. The Russian, arguably playing the best tennis of her career, survived a brief spell of uncertainty late in the first set before once again moving into overdrive against Jelena Jankovic, the third seeded Serb whose patched-together body — a result, according to her, of several minor injuries — could take no more.

Almost three hours after the 2004 Wimbledon champion went through to the final with a 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Jankovic, tears welled up in Ivanovic’s eyes as her Slovakian opponent, Daniela Hantuchova’s return of serve in the 10thgame of the decider failed to make it past the net, giving the 20-year-old Serb a 0-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory and a passage to the final.

Cold handshake

In what must go down as the coldest handshake in Grand Slam history, Hantuchova, who had raced to a 6-0, 2-0 lead before the Belgrade belle bounced back, grudgingly brushed her opponent’s fingers with her hesitantly extended palm before quickly disappearing into the tunnel.

What a capricious business sport is! About an hour earlier, it was Ivanovic who must have wished that somehow she could find a way to disappear. Playing in only her third Grand Slam semifinal, the popular Serb found herself staring down the barrel. But the moment she held to 1-2 in the second set and then broke serve to 2-2, she started to believe that she could turn dust into gold.

Wilting under pressure

And once Ivanovic started challenging her, Hantuchova wilted — not surprisingly, given her track record. She double faulted to hand the Serb a break in the eighth game and soon the second set was history.

In the decider, the crucial game was sixth. It was here that Ivanovic showed her mettle as a feisty competitor who doesn’t give up in a hurry. She survived seven deuces to hold to 3-3 and the broke to 5-4 before confidently serving out the match.

Sharapova, on the other hand, survived a brief letdown late in the first set — after winning the first five games — before pulling herself together to race to the finish.

She put that down to the fact that the match was played under a closed roof because of a brief drizzle before the start.

“I warmed up outside and then all of a sudden, the roof was closed,” said Sharapova.

THE RESULTS

Men’s singles: Semifinals: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Fra) bt 2-Rafael Nadal (Esp) 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.

Women’s singles: Semifinals: 5-Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt 3-Jelena Jankovic (Srb) 6-3, 6-1; 4-Ana Ivanovic (Srb) bt Daniela Hantuchova (Svk) 0-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Men’s doubles: Semifinals: 7-Arnaud Clement / Michael Llodra (Fra) bt Jeff Coetzee (USA) / Wesley Moodie (RSA) 6-3, 7-6(9); 8-Jonathan Erlich / Andy Ram (Isr) bt 6-Mahesh Bhupathi (Ind) / Mark Knowles (Bah) 6-4, 6-4.

Women’s doubles: Semifinals: Alona Bondarenko / Kateryna Bondarenko (Ukr) bt 10-Anabel Medina Garrigues / Virginia Ruano Pascual (Esp) 6-2, 6-4.

Mixed doubles: Quarterfinals: 3-Yan Zi (Chn) / Mark Knowles (Bah) bt 6-Chuang Chia-Jung (TPE) / Jonathan Erlich (Isr) 6-4, 6-4; 5-Tiantian Sun (Chn) / Nenad Zimonjic (Srb) bt 1-Cara Black (Zim) / Paul Hanley (Aus) 4-6, 7-6(6), 10-8.

Boys’ singles: Quarterfinals: 4-Ryan Harrison (USA) bt Wu Di (Chn) 3-6, 6-3, 6-0; 5-Bernard Tomic (Aus) bt 1-Cesar Ramirez (Mex) 6-4, 6-3; 10-Yang Tsung-Hua (Tpe) bt 2-Jerzy Janowicz (Pol) 7-5, 6-1; 8-Yuki Bhambri (Ind) bt 3-Daniel Evans (GBr) 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3.

Girls’ singles: Quarterfinals: Jessica Moore (Aus) bt Jasmina Tinjic (Cro) 6-4, 6-0; 14-Arantxa Rus (Ned) bt 5-Bojana Jovanovski (Srb) 6-1, 6-3; 10-Simona Halep (Rom) bt 1-Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (Rus) 6-2, 6-3; 11-Zhou Yi-Miao (Chn) bt Karen Barbat (Den) 6-0, 6-3.

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