ATP World Tour Finals 2012 Day 3: Berdych v Tsonga

From the start of the match, this was more a contest of who could smack the fluff from the balls first.

Berdych was swinging hard and flat, and there was not much variation from Jo.

Tsonga managed to dig out an ace in a sticky game at 3-3 and just hadn’t quite found his range, and an unlucky netcord for him gave Berdych a bit more time to put Jo under pressure again.

It was a gritty hold to just stay ahead on serve.

The fact that Berdych hadn’t been able to capitalise on Tsonga not settling into his game seemed to be playing on his mind, but managed to tough it out for a hold, to 4-4.

Tsonga seemed to be settling down now and by the end of the set, was forcing Berdych into a lot of defending, but again has seemed to detach a little.

He was in need of dialling back into the match again, and as such gave Berdych the break, and eventually the set

Tsonga did look a bit more up for things breaking Berdych to take the lead 3-1 and going on to consolidate.

Even though he was getting the better of Berdych, Tsonga was still very frustrating to watch with a lot of inconsistency.

That being said – he finished off the second set with an ace, but the whole set had a bit of a feel of more luck than judgement!

And sure enough at the start of the third set, Tsonga squandered chances to break right at the start, allowing Berdych to claw his way back to deuce, and to hold.

By this point it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that his inconsistency was give Berdych the edge, and sure enough the break came to put him ahead 3-1.

At the change of ends at 1-4, Tsonga’s UE stats made for shocking reading, with an almost audible gasp from those reading them on the screens overhead.

Jo looked step-slow and was broken to love to trail 1-5.

The final game, Berdych ran Tsonga ragged all around the place and Jo just looked totally fed up (not surprisingly!), and thankfully the end came!