Battle of the big serves here today. Tsonga had an easy passage into the final when his opponent Tomas Berdych withdrew from the tournament at the semi-final stage. Before that Tsonga came back strongly to defeat compatriot Michael Llodra in the second round, making hardly any mistakes in the last two sets and hardly losing a first serve point. He has only played here once before losing in the quarter finals to Nadal in 2009. He has the game suited to these courts and if he can serve over 70% of first serves he will be hard to beat.
Ljubicic though is in the same mold as his French counterpart. The tall powerful Croat fought his way into the semi-final with a three set epic against Marcos Baghdatis. To be fair though his serve was rarely threatened with the Croat serving 18 aces and winning over 85% of his first serves. He has good memories here in Rotterdam reaching the final twice before, losing to Mikhail Youzhny in 2007 and Roger Federer in a huge battle back in 2005.
Ljubicic has won the last two battles with Tsonga the last being in 2010 on hardcourts. This match could well be settled on tie-break sets as i doubt both players serves will be challenged much throughout the match, unless one of them loses concentration. Its is a very difficult match to pick but i think I will go with the two times finalist Ljubicic, as long as he is not too tired from yesterday.
Match Prediction:
Ivan Ljubicic to win.
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