Jack Sock falls to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets at U.S. Open

Jack Sock’s run at the U.S. Open came to an end Sunday.

Sock, who played in high school at Blue Valley North and was seeded 26th, lost to ninth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7-9), 6-2 in a fourth-round match.

Sock, the lone American man left in men’s singles, was trying to reach the quarterfinals of a tennis major for the first time in his career. No American man has made the last eight at the U.S. Open since 2011.

The loss also ended an impressive run this summer for Sock. In addition to winning three matches in the U.S. Open, he won a gold medal in mixed doubles and a bronze in men’s doubles at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“It was really difficult because he played great in the third (set),” Tsonga said. “I just tried to play my game in the fourth and that's it. Stay focused on what I have to do.”

Tsonga was in control of the match except in the third set.

After trading early service breaks that left the set tied 3-3, each player avoided break points on the way to a tiebreaker.

Tsonga jumped to a 2-0 lead in the tiebreaker but gave back the lead when he lost serve for 2-2. Sock edged ahead 5-3 when Tsonga missed a backhand and got to 6-4 and double set point. Tsonga saved the first with a forehand crosscourt winner and the next with a service winner.

Tsonga then had a match point at 7-6 that he lost on a forehand error. After a Sock forehand winner took it to 8-7 and his third set point, Sock forced a fourth set when he hit his 21st winner of the set.

However, Sock could not keep up the last set, dropping serve in the third and fifth games to fall behind 4-1.

Sock’s usual strong forehand was not sharp for most of the match, and the end came when he hit a forehand return well out of the court on Tsonga’s third match point.

The match lasted 3 hours, 14 minutes and included 27 errors by Sock. He had just five aces and had his serve broken six times.

Other highlights

▪ Frenchman Gael Monfils, seeded 10th, swept past Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 and improved to 18-2 in matches he’s played since a first-round loss at Wimbledon.

▪ Caroline Wozniacki eliminated eighth-seeded American Madison Keys 6-3, 6-4 and to reached the women’s quarterfinals, her deepest run at a Grand Slam tournament in two years.

Wozniacki is a two-time runner-up at Flushing Meadows, but she is unseeded and ranked only 74th after a season filled with injuries and poor results. She hadn’t won a match at a major in 2016 until arriving in New York.

▪ Roberta Vinci, last year’s U.S. Open runner-up, is back in the quarterfinals and defeating 99th-ranked Lesia Tsurenko 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.

This story was originally published September 4, 2016 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Jack Sock falls to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets at U.S. Open."