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A champion and a star

It isn’t often that a Grand Slam tennis tournament delivers twins: a brave new champion and a bright new star. By doing so, the Australian Open has thrown up a whole new dimension to the world of men’s tennis. That Novak Djokovic and unseeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga reached the final of this Grand Slam event signals a shift in the balance in the highest reaches of world tennis. That the two could produce a final of such remarkable quality suggests that the game is n o longer dominated by two superstars — the great Roger Federer (whose run of 10 successive Grand Slam final appearances ended with this tournament) and the resolute Rafael Nadal (the only real threat to the world number one over the last few years). Djokovic’s victory in the four-set final, marked by a curious mix of raw power and silken finesse, was waiting to happen. The lanky Serbian, whose lack of one big weapon is more than compensated by an extraordinarily well-honed set of all-court skills, had a wonderful 2007, in which he reached the U.S. Open final, won five ATP titles, beat Nadal twice in straight sets, and defeated Federer once. The world number one, who has never given the Serb his due, dismissed that defeat as “insignificant.” But Federer can hardly say the same of his straight-set semi-final loss in the Australian Open, where he was hunting for his 13th Grand Slam, a title that would have moved him ahead of Roy Emerson and brought him just one behind Pete Sampras’ record haul. In this match, he was out-served and out-hit from the baseline — in a word, outclassed.

If Djokovic’s victory was a date with destiny, Tsonga’s march to the finals seemed like the stuff of sheer caprice. Nobody could have predicted that this feisty Frenchman — who just seven months ago was ranked a lowly 178 and consigned to slugging away at an inconsequential tournament in Surrey while the French Open was under way — would come this far. His demolition of Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals through a beguiling mix of brute force and gossamer-like drop shots and touch volleys capped a string of comfortable victories against prominent players such as Andy Murray, Richard Gasquet, and Mikhail Youzhny. If Tsonga’s game is like a breath of fresh air, it is because he never plays the percentages; free-stroking, instinctive, and uninhibited, he plays tennis that seems tethered to nothing but his audacious self-confidence. Tsonga is no flash in the pan, but how far he will go depends on how he copes with injury, which has dogged him since 2005, and whether he can sustain his power and speed on court. If this endearing Frenchman stays on course, he and Djokovic can certainly reshape the future of men’s tennis.

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