Wimbledon 2017: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga loses to Sam Querrey in less than five minutes after overnight delay
Querrey immediately broke Tsonga on Saturday morning to win 6-2 3-6 7-6(5) 1-6 7-5, and will play the South African Kevin Anderson for a place in the quarter-finals
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Your support makes all the difference.On Friday night, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Sam Querrey slugged it out for 2 hours and 54 minutes on Court No 2, before fading light caused their third round match to be suspended.
Tsonga had hit 51 winners to 27 unforced errors, with Querrey had played one more winner compared to the exact same number of unforced errors. There was almost nothing to separate the two men, with Tsonga serving at 6-2 3-6 7-6(5) 1-6 6-5 at the resumption of play.
On Saturday morning, the two men played just eight points in less than five minutes, as Querrey immediately broke Tsonga to win the decisive fifth set 7-5. He will now play Kevin Anderson in the fourth round, who reached the second week of Wimbledon by beating the Belgian qualifier Ruben Bemelmans 7-6(3), 6-4, 7-6(3).
It was far from the conclusion this thrilling five-set match deserved.
On Friday, Querrey started at a rapid pace, breaking 12th-seed Tsonga in his third and fourth service games to take the opening set 6-2 in just 28 minutes.
But Tsonga hit back in the second and, after narrowly losing a third-set tiebreak, the momentum of the match looked to be in his favour when he thrashed the tiring American 6-1 in the fourth.
The fifth set then remained on serve until poor light forced the chair umpire to postpone play, with Querrey wasting no time in booking his spot in the second week on Saturday.
Tsonga won the first point of the day with a thumping ace, but then double-faulted, and lost the match when he swiped a routine forehand well long.
The five-set win was sweet revenge for Querrey, who had lost a previous epic to Tsonga at the 2014 Championships.
Three years ago it was Tsonga who had prevailed in the decisive fifth set, beating Querrey 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (4), 6-3, 14-12 over two days to progress into the third round.
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