Tsonga safely through in Metz

Jo-WilfriedTsonga_high_s

The Frenchman might have expected a more comfortable opening set against his 66th-ranked opponent on Wednesday, but the Luxembourger proved a match for Tsonga early on.

Muller only once allowed Tsonga to reach break point in a set that saw neither player drop a game on their own serve.

That trend followed into the tie-break before a slip-up by Muller at 7-7 allowed Tsonga to grab the lead.

Home favourite Tsonga managed to make an early breakthrough in the second set, but had to survive two break points at 3-2 up.

Three squandered match points looked like proving costly when Muller raced into a 40-15 lead in the 10th game, but Tsonga held on to eventually serve for the match.

Paul-Henri Mathieu also booked his place in the third round with a comfortable 6-3 6-4 win over fourth seed Lukas Rosol, much to the delight of the home crowd.

The French wildcard registered one break of serve in each set to see off his Czech opponent.

In the day's first-round matches, fifth seed Jeremy Chardy picked up a 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 victory over Nicolas Mahut in an all-French affair.

Mahut made an early breakthrough in a tight first set that had to be settled by a tie-break before Chardy's three games in a row at the end of the second settled the match.

Chardy will now face Jan-Lennard Struff in the second round after the German defeated Dusan Lajovic 6-7 (6-8) 6-3 6-3.

Elsewhere, Joao Sousa and David Goffin comfortably booked their places in the next round with 6-2 6-2 wins over Ivan Dodig and Florent Serra respectively, while Jarkko Nieminen beat Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-1 6-4.

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