MELBOURNE, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Serbian Novak Djokovic captured his first Grand Slam event title by beating Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Sunday's final at the 2008 Australian Open.
The 20-year-old Djokovic became the first Serb to win a Grand Slam title, overcoming an early upset to register a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3,7-6 (7-2) win over the unseeded Tsonga in three hours and six minutes.
The victory of Djokovic also broke the record hold by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as the two top players won all the 11 titles of the Grand Slam since 2005.
Tsonga, who will become France's first Grand Slam winner in 25 years if he wins the final, had a brilliant start as he broke the Serbian's serve twice in the first set and finished it out at 6-4.This is the only set that Djokovic lost in the tournament.
But the 22-year-old Tsonga could not go with him in the remaining sets. Djokovic found his game in the second set, he broke Tsonga's serve in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead after some long rallies.
He confirmed his lead by holding his serve games and finished the set in the ninth game with a love service game.
Djokovic made an early broke in the third set to claim a 2-1 advantage and stretched it to 4-2. In the ninth game, Djokovic broke Tsonga's serve for the third time in the set and concluded the set at 6-3.
Both players came out more firing in the fourth set as they kept their every serve game to force the set into the tiebreaker.
Djokovic broke again in the tiebreaker to take a 2-0 lead. Tsonga tried to fight back but only made a pair of fault to gift his opponent a 5-1 lead.
Djokovic finally closed out the tiebreaker 7-2 when Tsonga misfired wide with his last forehand to become the youngest winner of men's title in the Melbourne Park.
