Moscow round up

Blow for Jo but impressive serving stats from Viktor

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France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered a major blow in his bid to add valuable South African Airways 2010 ATP Ranking points to his year-to-date ATP Ranking on Thursday, when the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals contender made an opening-round exit at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.

Serbian No. 3 Viktor Troicki upset third-seeded Tsonga 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in two hours and four minutes, losing just nine points on first serve. It was his third win in four meetings over Tsonga, who hit 13 aces and dropped to a 29-15 match record on the season.

"The difference is that I am not 100% yet and he is too good a player if you are not at the top of your game," admitted Tsonga. "It was a big match and a big tournament for me to do well. Now, [London] is a bit far for me as the players ahead of me are doing well. It is almost mission impossible."

Troicki said: "The start was bad for me, then I played better and I was a bit luckier at the end. I like to play in Moscow, my father is Russian and I get a lot of support here.

Sixth seed Andrey Golubev and No. 7 seed Sergiy Stakhovsky, who have both won ATP World Tour titles this season, also lost in the second round.

Russian qualifier Igor Kunitsyn, the 2008 champion, kept his nerve to beat Golubev 6-4, 7-5 in 90 minutes, while World No. 56 Alexandr Dolgopolov defeated Stakhovsky 6-2, 7-6(4) in 82 minutes.
Golubev, who won the German Open Tennis Championships at Hamburg (d. Melzer) in July, dropped to a 23-19 match record on the season. Stakhovsky, the UNICEF Open (d. Tipsarevic) and Pilot Pen Tennis (d. Istomin) titlist, fell to a 26-22 season mark.

Argentine Horacio Zeballos, the ATP's Newcomer Of The Year award recipient for 2009, won back-to-back ATP World Tour matches for the first time since he reached the US Men’s Clay Court Championships semi-finals (l. to Chela) at Houston in April.

Zeballos saved all three break points he faced and hit 10 aces to beat Romanian qualifier Victor Crivoi 7-5, 7-6(1) in one hour and 34 minutes.

Denis Istomin, the New Haven finalist in August, won three more points than French lucky loser Paul-Henri Mathieu in a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory in just under two hours. Both players hit 12 aces, but Istomin was stronger on serve.

Courtesy: ATP