Tennis:Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vowed to "fight like a lion" against world number one Novak Djokovic after battling his way into the quarter-finals of the French Open for the first time. The entertaining Frenchman was back on court this afternoon against Stanislas Wawrinka after darkness forced an end to play last night with Tsonga 4-2 up in the fifth.
Wawrinka immediately retrieved the break but Tsonga struck again with the Swiss player serving to stay in the match to clinch a 6-4 7-6 (8/6) 3-6 3-6 6-4 victory. For the fifth seed, it was revenge for last year, when Wawrinka fought back from two sets to love down to win.
Tsonga said: “It was very intense, because we stopped yesterday. All night and this morning I thought about how I will do, how I will play, and if I will win or not. Then when I won the last point, I felt free. That’s why there is a lot of emotion.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s clash with Djokovic, who recovered from two sets down to beat Andreas Seppi yesterday, he added: “It’s going to be a very difficult match. But obviously I’ll fight like a lion and we’ll see the result.”
The match between Juan Martin Del Potro and Tomas Berdych was also suspended last night after the Argentinian won the third set, and he picked up where he had left off to win 7-6 (8/6) 1-6 6-3 7-5 and end the hopes of the seventh seed. Del Potro had bad memories from last year, when he had been on top of Djokovic in their third-round match when they had to stop for darkness, and the Serb went on to win reasonably comfortably.
“I didn’t have a good experience in this case,” said the 23-year-old, who next meets Roger Federer. “But I got up this morning very positive, trying to close the match in the fourth set, and I restarted the match very focused.”
Del Potro and Federer met in the semi-finals here in 2009, with the Swiss fighting back from two sets to one down to triumph and then going on to win his only French Open crown. Del Potro famously beat Federer later the same year in the final of the US Open before wrist problems ruined his 2010 season, and he has lost all five matches between the pair since his return.
The ninth seed is confident his knee will not be an issue, and he said: “I don’t want my knee to be a hindrance, and it is not a hindrance. It doesn’t bother me. If I lose this match I cannot say it is because of my knee.”
Spaniards David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro both marched into the quarter-finals and have not dropped a set between them all tournament. Indeed, sixth seed Ferrer has lost only 25 games in four matches following his 6-3 6-2 6-0 victory over an outclassed Marcel Granollers today.
Almagro knocked out eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic 6-4 6-4 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals for the third time in five years and then hailed the victory as one of his best. He said: “I think I played great tennis today. The day was a little bit cloudy, but now it’s really sunny for me. That win is one of the best moments of my career.”
There is no doubt Almagro will have a new best moment if he manages to reach the semi-finals, because that will almost certainly mean beating Rafael Nadal. The defending champion has stood in Almagro’s way on his two previous runs to the quarter-final, and he did not take a set in either match, but he is hopeful it can be third time lucky if Nadal gets past Juan Monaco later today.