43rd WEEK

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga [8] has found his best tennis in the second part of the season in Great Britain on grass. Afterwards he experienced very good American tour (outdoors), and has confirmed his ‘Masters’ aspirations collecting two consecutive titles which he played indoors (6th & 7th crowns); a couple weeks ago in Metz and in Vienna yesterday (fired 25 aces in the final). In both winning tournaments, Tsonga was relatively close to lose quarter-finals – one game away (in Metz vs. Mahut, in Vienna vs. Malisse). The two-time defending champion Jurgen Melzer had been beaten by Anderson to lose a 9-match winning streak in his home city and because of back injury pulled out of the last three tournaments (Basel, Paris, London – would play in the doubles Masters).
In St. Petersburg, Marin Cilic [22] spoiled a Janko Tipsarevic’s dream of claiming back-to-back Russian titles – the Serb notched the best winning streak (8) and almost secured himself an advancement to the Top 10 for the first time anyway. It was the best two weeks also in Alex Bogomolov’s career, the Russian-born American got quarter-final in Moscow and semi-final in the following week in St. Petersburg. Bogomolov stated he would like to represent Russia in the Davis Cup, the Davis Cup Committee will consider this declaration at its next meeting in December. Cilic, who’d waited more than a year for his 6th title, saved a match point on serve in the quarter-finals at 7:8 in the tie-break against Seppi. It’s the third time in the last five years that the ultimate champion had to save a match point # “I played the first two sets a little bit up and down and had some unforced errors,” Cilic said. “But I played my best tennis in the third set. I lost three finals this year and all of them were in three sets. So today, when the match went into the third set, I was really into it to win.”

Finals

Vienna (250)
S: (1)Jo-Wilfried Tsonga d. (2)Juan Martin del Potro 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4
D: (1)B.Bryan/M.Bryan d. (2)M.Mirnyi/D.Nestor 7-6(10), 6-3

St. Petersburg (250)
S: (4)Marin Cilic d. (2)Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 3-6, 6-2
D: (3)C.Fleming/R.Hutchins d. M.Elgin/A.Kudryavtsev 6-3, 6-7(5), [10-8]

Choker of the week:

Nikolay Davydenko, who led 4:0* in the 3rd set against Steve Darcis in Vienna, then was two points away to win the match at 5:3* (30 all), and served to win the match once again at 6:5. It’s the biggest choke in Davydenko’s career; Darcis won 2-6, 6-0, 7-6.

# Match point saved winners in St. Petersburg:

2007: Andy Murray – saved 1 MP in SF (against M.Youzhny)
2009: Sergiy Stakhovsky – saved 1 MP in final (against H.Zeballos)
2011: Marin Cilic – saved 1 MP in QF (against A.Seppi)