A frustrating day at Indian Wells. I settled in to see if Jo-Wilfried Tsonga could summon up anything close to the perfect match he played against Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open.

Twice I was ready to wrap up my piece with the news that Tsonga could beat Nadal without playing a perfect match - and twice I was foiled. Three hours after it began, Nadal was the guy moving on to the quarter-finals and Frenchman Tsonga was going home.

After exchanging breaks to start off the match, Tsonga won the first set in a tie-break after failing to cash in on two set points in the previous game. Same thing in the second set - the players exchanged breaks and went to a tie-breaker again.

'Tsonga is almost two years older than Rafa biologically speaking, but he's far younger in tennis years.'


Tie-breaks should favour Tsonga with that big serve of his - and here was the first time I was ready to finish my story. Tsonga only managed to get one first serve in out of five tries, however, and we were going to a third set.

The second time came after Tsonga broke Nadal in the third set to go up 4-2. He was playing pretty well from the baseline – at one point he hit an inside-out forehand followed by a drop shot to the opposite corner and then won the point with a lob - but he couldn’t get to the net anywhere near as much as he did at the Australian Open because this is a slower and stickier court.

As Nadal put it: "The ball is getting a lot of top spin, so much more than Australia, so that helps me a little bit."

That may have helped him, but it wasn’t the difference in this match - the difference was tennis years. Tsonga is almost two years older than Rafa biologically speaking, but he's far younger in tennis years. This is how Rafa put it in his endearing way of speaking: "The truth is, well, I have more years on the top position. I have three years, so I win a lot of matches like today."

I’ve been trying to interview Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram all week to find out why they didn’t play Dubai after announcing that they would. I ran down to the cafeteria to find them because they’d just finished their match so I missed part of the third set. It was a waste of time on my part. Erlich and Ram won’t speak to me without an ATP person present and, when asked in a post-match media session, they refused to talk about Dubai.

I did see Tsonga fail to serve out the third set - and that was all Rafa needed. His first-serve percentage in the third set was 81% while Tsonga had exactly zero aces during the set. This is what Tsonga had to say about that third set, which shows some of his immaturity: "Yes, my serve was not very good in the third set. I tried to hit the ball more and more and maybe it was the wrong way."

Ya think? Donald Young is only 18 years old but he took something off his serve in his third-round match with Nadal rather than smashing the ball and continuing to miss. Young didn’t win the match, but that was certainly the correct adjustment.

Young has also played in five Master Series events, while this is only Tsonga’s second and that Australian Open final is his only final to date. I expect Tsonga will figure it out - in fact, I think he would have won this match had it been played at Wimbledon. He feels bad because he wanted to prove that his run in Australia wasn’t just down to luck, but he proved it to me.

I think he’s got some Pete Sampras in him. He can hit aces when he needs them, he’s got a killer inside-out forehand and a great touch volley. He’s even got Pete’s jump overhead. Best of all, he’s shown that he can rise to the occasion in big events.

I’m still a fan.

To read more, please go to http://tennisdiary.com

Copyright ©2007 Most Valuable Network, LLC