Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered a surprising 4th round loss to the rising Japanese talent, Kei Nishikori, 2-6 6-2 6-1 3-6 6-3.  Nishikori demonstrated his fighting spirit to come back from a convincing first set loss and his fitness as he battled through another five set match and in the soaring heat.  I have only seen glimpses of Tsonga so far this week and all the times I have seen him, I felt he looked comfortable in his matches without really playing that well. The last two games can be watched in the video below.  Nishikori will go through to play Andy Murray, who had a cakewalk out on Rod Laver Arena as Mikhail Kukushkin retired at 6-1 6-1 1-0 down.  Murray still has not faced a seeded player as his draw has opened up rather delightfully; the big test though will come in the semi-finals…

Novak Djokovic lost his first set of the championships to a truly dogged performance by Lleyton Hewitt in a 6-1 6-3 4-6 6-3 victory.  Hewitt worked his socks off and did extremely well to come back from 3-0 down in the third set to win it, but did not have anything left in the tank in the fourth set.  Djokovic will play David Ferrer in the quarter-finals after he had a surprisingly easy match over Richard Gasquet, 6-4 6-4 6-1.  We have a star-studded quarter-final line-up so hopefully the excitement in the mens tournament will really start to crank up now…