Black Tennis Pros

BRISBANE, Australia: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga recovered from a disastrous start to overcome Finland's Jarkko Nieminen and lead a posse of Frenchmen into the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International on Wednesday.

Tsonga failed to win a game in the first set but came back to win the last two sets in tie-breaks to ensure four Frenchmen made the final eight.

He closed out the match 0-6, 7-6 (7/1), 7-6 (7/5) to join Richard Gasquet, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Florent Serra in the quarter-finals.



Rafael Nadal and Gael Monfils will square off in the Doha quarterfinals on Thursday. The winner will meet either Andy Roddick or Victor Hanescu in the semis.

Rafael Nadal and Gael Monfils will do battle for the fourth time in their careers on Thursday when they meet in the quarterfinals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. Nadal holds a 3-0 edge in the head-to-head series, but only one of the victories came on hard courts. He won 6-3, 6-2 on the clay courts of Rome in 2005, 6-2, 6-2 on the Monte-Carlo dirt in 2006, and most recently 6-3, 6-2 at last season's Master Series Paris.

Monfils erased Jan Hernych in the first round but struggled with countryman Nicolas Devilder for two hours and seven minutes before outlasting him 7-5, 7-6(4).