Tennis’ dashing young man

Because Jo-Wilfried Tsonga looks so much like Muhammad Ali, you expect his tennis game to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Instead, he delivers mostly uppercuts and roundhouses.

When Tsonga took the court in the Pacific Life Open on Monday, it was clear that those who buy tickets to this event had been paying attention. The Frenchman had come out of nowhere, No. 212 at the start of 2007, to make the final of this year’s first major tournament, the Australian Open. He beat Rafael Nadal in the semifinals, then lost to Novak Djokovic in the final.

Monday, they put him on Stadium Court 2 in the late afternoon, and the people found him, packed the place and loved the show.

Tsonga is not yet a star, but he’s certainly a fascination.

Will he be the next Roger Federer? Or will it be more like the next Thomas Johansson, the Swedish player who came out of nowhere to win the Australian in 2002 and then returned whence he came?

Tsonga’s match against Paul-Henri Mathieu had more significance than your normal third-rounder. Mathieu, also from France, is ranked No. 14, three spots better than Tsonga. The French Davis Cup team, which will play the United States in Winston-Salem, N.C., next month, has its No. 1 singles player well set in No. 8 Richard Gasquet. His running mate, to be chosen by Coach Guy Forget, probably will be Tsonga or Mathieu.

“It was very important to win today,” Tsonga said.

And so he did, in spectacular fashion.

His 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory, against a very good player who was giving it his best on every point, was both impressive and telling.

Tsonga hit 15 aces, a big number for two sets and on courts that generally play medium to medium-slow. He won 79% of the points when he got his first serve in and 76% of his total service points. For the most part, he hit his ground strokes at two swing speeds: hard and harder. He is 6 feet 2, 200 pounds, runs like a deer and goes after every ball.

He is 22 but leaves the impression that he is still a puppy, growing into his paws.

Long seasons on the tiring roadshow that is the ATP tour tend to grind much of the enthusiasm out of players. It hasn’t happened yet to Tsonga.

On Tsonga’s first set point, Mathieu serving at 5-6 of the tiebreaker, Tsonga tracked down two forehand bombs to the deepest portion of his backhand side. To get the first back was spectacular, the second unheard of.

Mathieu, four years older and in his ninth year on the tour, understood how fast Tsonga is and stayed in the match by negating some of that speed with shots behind his opponent. Everywhere Tsonga moved, Mathieu wrong-footed him.

So when Tsonga got to his first big forehand on set point, and started scrambling back to the middle, Mathieu did it again. He cracked another forehand, this time harder and even a few inches deeper.

He even followed it in to the net, a rare appearance there for either player.

Somehow, Tsonga was able to plant his right foot, lurch back to his left and stretch all-out to at least get a racket on the ball. His effort brought a little floater that cleared the net on Mathieu’s forehand side. Mathieu, probably as stunned as everybody watching that the ball somehow came back, stabbed at it weakly and sliced it into the net.

Basically, that was match point. Tsonga, who had broken Mathieu’s serve in the first game and then was broken back in the next game, was untouchable on his serve now. He served first in the second set, both held all the way until Mathieu served at 4-5, then Tsonga got Mathieu to hit long on his second match point.

Then it was time to celebrate. He danced around the net, then turned to all four sides, applauding his applauding audience. It had become a bit of a love fest, and why not? Sports fans in the United States once worshiped a Joe Willie (Namath), so why not this Jo-Willie?

Charlie Pasarell, former pro star, now tournament director here, came to watch and christened Tsonga one of the great names in sports today, kind of tough and masculine. Pancho Segura, another former star, was there, too, and called Tsonga “Muhammad Ali Jr.”

And why not? The resemblance is amazing. Has anybody checked the family tree?

Tsonga said the fan embrace means much to him. He said that, after Australia, he went home to play an event in Marseille and got a 10-minute standing ovation when he took the court.

“Without the, how you say, crowd, I won’t play,” he said. “I try to share with them.”

The next Tsonga-sharing opportunity will take place Wednesday at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, when he plays none other than Nadal in the fourth round. Nadal is seeded second, is the defending champion, and certainly remembers who sent him out of the Australian one round shy of the final.

“Oh yes, I look forward,” Tsonga said. “Who knows against Nadal. That day [in Australia] I was just unbelievable.”

Nadal plays like Tsonga. Expect few jabs. Two guys going for a knockout on every point. No floating and stinging allowed.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.