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1/13/08 9:33 PM | Ricky Dimon
Youngsters Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Andy Murray will do battle in what looks like one of the best first-round matchups of the 2008 Australian Open.
All eyes in Melbourne Park will be on two rising stars when 22-year-old Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga meets 20-year-old Scot Andy Murray in a marquee first-round match. With the way these two have been playing recently, this sizzling matchup would be much better suited as a second-week clash rather than an opening-round affair.
Tsonga enjoyed a breakout season in 2007, soaring from 212th in the world up to number 43. He reached the fourth round of Wimbledon and the third round of the U.S. Open. All signs point to even bigger things from Tsonga in 2008. Two weeks ago he reached the semi-finals in Adelaide and his run there featured straight-set wins over both Ernests Gulbis and Lleyton Hewitt.
Murray finished the 2007 season ranked 11th in the world and narrowly missed qualifying for the year-end Masters Cup in Shanghai despite missing most of the summer—including the French Open and Wimbledon—with a wrist injury. Picking things up right where he left off last year, Murray began his 2008 campaign with a dominant performance in Doha to capture the title there.
These two competitors have faced off just once in their young careers, with Murray scoring a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Tsonga on the hard courts of Metz, France just three months ago. The new Plexicushion surface at the Australian Open is supposedly faster than the old Rebound Ace surface (although the players don’t seem to think so), and if that’s the case, the big-serving, hard-hitting Tsonga should make it a much tighter match this time around.
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