Del Potro downs Tsonga

SHANGHAI // The Argentine tennis player Juan Martin Del Potro beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 7-6 to keep his Masters Cup hopes alive and leave the Frenchman on the brink of elimination from the $4.45 million (Dh16.3m) season finale today. The 20-year-old seventh seed, who lost his opening group match to Serbia's Novak Djokovic, broke Tsonga's first service game and always looked the more likely to win a tight contest.

The sixth seed Tsonga served up 17 aces and rattled home 42 winners but that good work was undone by 38 unforced errors, the last of which came when he put the ball in the net to end the second tiebreak. The 23-year-old lost his opener to Nikolay Davydenko and will be out of contention for a place in the semi-finals if Djokovic beats the Russian in the second Gold Group match later today. *Reuters