Tsonga, Del Potro to battle for Vienna title

Year-end ATP finals candidates Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Martin Del Potro will square off in Sundays Austrian Open title match with each hoping to improve his standing and qualify for Novembers season wrap-up in London.Top seed Tsonga is one victory away from a perfect debut at the Stadthalle in the Austrian capital after beating German qualifier Daniel Brands 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) in a semi-final lasting 82 minutes.Number two Del Potro hammered 18 aces as he won a battle of serve with South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.Tsonga stands provisional eighth in the race for the November 20-27 ATP World Tour Finals in London and can only improve that position if he wins the trophy.Del Potro, poised to leapfrog 11th-placed Frenchman Gilles Simon, is also poised on the brink of possible qualification with this weekend and two more weeks of regular season ATP play remaining.Tsonga admitted he had it tougher than might be expected against the number 182 Brands, a 24-year-old competing in only his second ATP career final after Munich in 2009.The German saved two set points in the first and took the second set into a tiebreaker.Tsonga, who has been bothered by slow starts in his matches this week, was relieved to go through.Del Potro will be playing his first final since winning Estoril on clay six months ago.Del Potros 18-ace count was almost matched by Anderson, who struck 17 in a tight match lasting nearly two and a quarter hours.The winner broke three times while losing serve twice as he posted his second win of the season over Anderson, after a victory in the Delray quarter-finals in February on the way to that title.