Richard plays Frenchman Jo Wilfred-Tsonga in Saturday's semi-finals.
They've played twice before. Tsonga won 6-0, 6-3 on grass in rd2 of the Nottingham challenger in 2004 and went on to win the title. Tsonga also won indoors 6-4, 6-3 in the semis of a Bath 15K earlier this year which he also went on to win.
Some more info on Tsonga: He's also been in good form in Rennes, he beat French serve-volleyer Gregory Carraz 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in rd1 and then big-serving Germany Torsten Popp [brother of former Wimby quarter-finalist Alex] 6-3, 6-4 in rd2 and today he beat Czech 3rd seed Lukas Dlouhy 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the quarters.
Tsonga reached no 2 in the juniors back in 2003 and he made a successful start to the senior tour, rocketing up the rankings to 133 in 2005. He looked destined for the top 50 but then injury struck. He made his comeback in late 2005 and earlier this year won 3 straight futures indoors before reaching the Lanzarote challenger final. However, then the injury curse struck again. He made his comeback by reaching the final of a French futures indoors. Currently ranked 261 but definately a future top 100 player if he can stay fit.
Tsonga's a very powerful baseliner, huge serve and forehand.
UBF: i hope bloomfield does get to the final, as you said bloomfield on fire with his serve, so should do well against tsonga. what his ranking going to be? do you think he will still go to canada and play the challenger there? or get a SE in one of challengers in europe providing hes down as an alternate?
VSandhi20 wrote: UBF: i hope bloomfield does get to the final, as you said bloomfield on fire with his serve, so should do well against tsonga. what his ranking going to be? do you think he will still go to canada and play the challenger there? or get a SE in one of challengers in europe providing hes down as an alternate?
The problem for Richard today is that Tsonga has just as big a serve and Tsonga is the heavier hitter from the back of the court. It'll be a very close match, it will probably be decided by tiebreaks. Tsonga can blow opponents off the court when on form but can be very erratic at times, very much like his compatriot Monfils but Tsonga is not as good an athlete. Richard is very consistent from the baseline, so he'll be looking to frustrate Tsonga into errors.
As m-j-d said, this is a tough month for Richard with lots of points dropping off [40 I think in total]. He's got Southampton challenger pts coming off next week aswell as pts from winning a futures in Belgium.
Next week Richard heads to Glasgow for the 15K futures there [the Scottish indoors], he's the 3rd seed on the entry list which is extremely strong - top seed is Cipolla, ranked 200. It starts on Tuesday, Richard should make the semis at least.
After that it's the Nottingham challenger and then off to Canada. I was surprised that he's heading to Canada as he most definately didn't enjoy his spell in North America in the summer and the courts don't suit him as much as in Europe. However, then I saw the entry list. The challengers in North America are a lot weaker than the European ones. Richard will be seeded 5 for the first one so it's a good opportunity to gain a sackload of pts. Maybe he's also seeking to link up with Gilbert. Brad's going to have his hands full this winter with Boggo, Mackin, Kasiri and Baker all wanting to train with him and Andy.