After Federer, Nadal and Murray, Tsonga is the player of the circuit who has defeated Djokovic more times. Up to six times the French have been able to beat to the undisputed leader of world tennis. And that is, in their first matches, Tsonga was a really hard opponent for Djokovic. From 2008 to 2010 they played seven times with the result of 5-2 for the French. Then, since 2011, year of the real take off of the Serbian, the tide was turned and the balance since then is 13-1 for Djokovic; adding that 11 of those 13 victories were in consecutive sets. The total balance is 15-6 but with a domain almost absolute by the number one in the past years.
Almost everything has been said about the Djokovic´s records. Since 2011 he has won 11 of the 23 Grand Slam played and he has been finalist in 6 finals. In the last 6 seasons he has only missed 6 finals of Grand Slams. He holds the absolute record of Masters 1000 titles (30) and since 2011 he has won 25 of the 52 played. Bearing in mind that he also has won the four latest editions of ATP Finals, it turns out that Djokovic has won 40 of the last 80 major titles of the ATP calendar, so half to him and half to everyone else.
He has a balance this season of 54 wins and 5 defeats, a stratospheric 91,53% but less than the brutal 82-6 (93,18%) he achieved last year. His mark facing top-10 is astonishing: 18-1 this year and a streak of 49-6 since 2015.
With all this numbers, Tsonga´s records and any player´s numbers seems to be smaller. The French has a balance this season of 28 wins and 13 losses with the semi-finals in Monte Carlo and the quarterfinals at Wimbledon as his best results. Tsonga, who has won 12 ATP titles, does not win a tournament for almost a year, when he clinched the title in Metz 2015. The best performance of his career was, without doubt, Toronto 2014 when he won the title after defeating Djokovic, Murray, Dimitrov and Federer successively. On Grand Slam his best result is the final of the Australian Open 2008. Then he has two semi-finals at Wimbledon, two at Roland Garros and another one in Australia. In the U.S. Open, where he played for the eighth time, he has the quarterfinals of 2011 and 2015 as his best results.
Djokovic has had an easy walk until now in the tournament. After a first match something agitated against Janowicz, who won a set, he spent the following two rounds with 31 minutes on court. Walkover with Vesely and retired of Youzhny when he was winning 4-2 in the first set were his two following matches. In eighth finals, he got a comfortable victory against Kyle Edmund.
Tsonga comes with many more minutes on his legs after beating Anderson and Sock in the last two rounds. He is fourth in percentage of service points won with 69,82%, behind Karlovic, Isner and Murray. He has only received 4 breaks in the tournament.
FORECAST
All signs points to a new victory of Djokovic, as much as Tsonga is the first serious opponent who can get the Serbian in trouble in this tournament. The 3-0 in favour of Djokovic is paid to 1.73, quote that according to our system offers a value of a 17%. Considering that 13 of the last 15 victories of Djokovic over Tsonga have been in consecutive sets, including the last two showdowns in Grand Slam, we believe it may be an interesting option.
Gabriel García
