Class tells in the end — and so it proved on a balmy Friday night at Montecasino as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and David Ferrer eased into the semifinals of the revived South African Open.
Top-seeded Tsonga accounted for Belgium’s occasionally brilliant but temperamentally vulnerable Kristof Vliegen 6-4 6-1, and second-seeded Ferrer was too solid and workmanlike for Marcos Baghdatis, the darling of the near-capacity tennis crowd, in a grinding 7-5 6-2 success.
But in spite of the warranted enthusiasm and fervour at this stately venue over big-time tennis returning to South Africa, top-class tennis this was not.
Perhaps it was simply the world becoming spoilt by the likes of Nadal, Federer and Verdasco in the recent Australian Open that ignited the element of an anti-climax.
But, more than that, Tsonga and Ferrer were both noticeably uneasy in their opening sets before settling down to something like their best form in the second stanzas — and their opponents are simply not performing all that well at this moment.
Perhaps Ferrer and Tsonga will raise their form to that of the fifth and seventh world rankings they enjoyed until recently in the inspirational glare of the semifinals when they face France’s Jeremy Chardy and Portugal’s Frederico Gil respectively on Saturday.
Fifth-seeded Chardy accounted for dark horse Sebastien de Chaunac 7-6 6-4 to book a date with Ferrer in the semifinals and Gil, a delicate, delightful surprise packet in the tournament — who earlier beat South Africa’s Rik De Voest — will come up against Tsonga after his 7-6 6-3 win over fourth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. — Sapa