Tsonga defeats Dimitrov to march into Toronto final

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  • On a roll: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is into his first Masters 1000 final in three years.

    Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is showing no signs of slowing down as the Frenchman toppled his third top-10 seed in a row in Toronto to reach the final of the Rogers Cup – his first ATP Masters 1000 final in three years.

    The French former world No5, who has slipped outside the top-10 this season, added seventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov to his list of upsets this week in Canada, having also taken out world No1 Novak Djokovic in the last 16 and eighth-seeded Andy Murray in the quarter-finals.

    Tsonga, who was playing his third semi-final in four appearances in Canada, needed just 84 minutes to defeat the Bulgarian 6-4, 6-3 and reach his second final of the season (lost his first in Marseille in February).

    A day after firing a monster 237km/h serve, Tsonga was once again dominant on serve, saving all four break points he faced and winning 88 per cent of his points on first serve.

    All four break points came when he was serving for the opening set and after securing the lead, Tsonga would not face anymore break points as he broke to love for a 2-1 lead in the second set en route to a comfortable victory.

    The win will lift Tsonga to at least No13 in the rankings but he could go higher should he triumph in the final, where he faces either Roger Federer or Feliciano Lopez (played early this morning).

    Tsonga, who has had a lacklustre 2014 season thus far is chasing a first title of the year.

    His wins over Djokovic and Murray ended a nine-match losing streak to the former and an eightmatch losing streak to the latter.

    His record against top-10 players this year had been 0-7 going into the tournament.

    This week marks just the second time Tsonga has managed to defeat three top-10 opponents in the same event. The last time the 29-year-old had done so was in the ATP World Tour Finals in 2011.

    A victory in today’s final would make him the first Frenchman to win an ATP Masters 1000 crown outside France (not in Monte Carlo or Paris-Bercy) since Guy Forget won Cincinnati in 1991.

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