TENNIS/Australian Open:Everybody had always suspected, given the draw, that whoever won that opening match between Andy Murray and France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga would have a wonderful chance of pushing deep and hard into the second week of the year's opening grand slam championship.

And Tsonga, the youngster with the Muhammad Ali looks, has done that with a vengeance. In the first of the night-time semi-finals he simply annihilated Spain's Rafael Nadal, the world number two, in three electrifying sets of brilliant tennis.

Never before had Tsonga played like this. "It's ridiculous for sure. Everything was perfect," he said. This was indeed something special, a victory of such composed and sustained brilliance that the 15,000 in the Rod Laver arena found themselves laughing out aloud at the incongruous joy of it all. "Tsonga Tsunami" read a banner and it just about summed up the Frenchman's 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 victory in a little under two hours.

Nadal, three times the French Open champion and twice Wimbledon runner-up, was engulfed. Nobody can be sure if his vulnerability is short term or not, although he was heavily defeated by Russia's Mikhail Youzhny in the final of the Chennai Open recently, a lead-up tournament to the Australian Open. Nadal's game is dependent on the imposition of his physical strengths, running down every ball and firing in his wickedly spinning and swerving ground strokes.

Tsonga, a wonderful athlete himself, simply went for broke and there was absolutely nothing the Spaniard could do about it. Tsonga served 17 aces, clumped his forehand with a severity that frequently left Nadal chasing shadows and displayed a sureness and deftness of touch at the net that was beyond his opponent's comprehension.

There was a glorious moment when Tsonga picked up a half-volley a few feet from the net that looped gently over and died in the instant it hit the ground. Tsonga smiled and so did Nadal. It was an outrageous shot and the 22-year-old from Le Mans, a year older than Nadal, continued to achieve the improbable for the rest of the evening. This was only his fifth major and by reaching the final he will break through into the top 20 for the first time next week, while doubling his prize-money.

So where has he been hiding? Tsonga was always an outstanding youngster, just missing out on becoming the world junior number one in 2003 to Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, the equally surprising 2006 finalist here. His problems began three years ago when a serious back injury, a herniated disc, threatened to cut his career off at its prime. No surgeon or doctor could tell him for sure that he would be able to play again and the French federation, to its credit, offered him every support and kept him in its squad.

Now, after each victory, Tsonga points his thumbs at his back as if to emphasise that solidarity and his delight that he is once again an integral part of the French tennis family. He has never won an ATP singles title, not even reached a final, yet now, spectacularly, his first could be the Australian Open.

This tournament has thrown up surprises in recent years, Chile's Fernando Gonzalez, Baghdatis, Rainer Schuttler and another Frenchman, Arnaud Clement, all being unlikely finalists, while Sweden's Thomas Johansson won his only major here in 2002. What has singled out Tsonga has been the elan he has brought to the court. It would have been understandable if he had frozen against Nadal. Instead he played the game of his life.

As he went to serve for the match his eyes were dancing around the arena as if to say, "Yes I am here and I belong here too". No one was surprised when he aced Nadal for his place in the final.

Guardian Service Men's singles semi-final: J-W Tsonga (Fra) bt (2) R Nadal (Spa) 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.

Women's singles semi-finals: (4) A Ivanovic (Ser) bt (9) D Hantuchova (Svk) 0-6, 6-3, 6-4; (5) Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt (3) Jelena Jankovic (Ser) 6-3, 6-1.