Roger Federer out as Stan & Tsonga set up French Open semi

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  • Wawrinka (l) set to take on Tsonga (r) in the semis.

    It would have been the collapse that led to the mother of all collapses but Jo-Wilfried Tsonga narrowly escaped it to beat fifth-seeded Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3 and set up a semi-final with Stan Wawrinka, who sent Roger Federer packing in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.

    Tsonga, who is through to his second semi-final here in Paris, had pounced to a 6-1, 5-1 lead over an out-of-sorts Nishikori, who had his just five winners and 25 unforced errors thus far in the match. The Japanese fought off a break point and managed to hold serve for 2-5, forcing Tsonga to serve for the second set.

    “I’m not sure what happened. I was a little bit lost. I was doing everything wrong, almost. He was playing using a lot of forehands and hitting good serves and I couldn’t make anything the first two sets,” was Nishikori’s own description of badly he performed.

    But the match was suddenly halted as a metal sheet from the scoreboard collapsed on a group of spectators in the stands, causing minor injuries to three of them.

    Security vacated that section for safety reasons as Tsonga sat on his bench, his eyes closed, trying to maintain his focus while Nishikori stood at the back of the court hoping this pause might turn around his fortunes. The players were taken off-court and security taped off the danger area.

    Play resumed 35 minutes later with Tsonga serving for a two-set lead. The Frenchman’s rhythm was clearly interrupted by the break and he fell behind 0-40 and got broken. Nishikori, who entered the match with a 4-1 head-to-head record against his opponent, mustered another game but Tsonga served it out on his second attempt.

    A new and improved Nishikori pulled off the next two sets, and as the match went to a decider, the home crowd were praying Tsonga would recover.

    The No14 seed got the break he needed early in the fifth and he fell to his knees when a Nishikori ball sailed long, knowing this would have been a defeat that would haunt him for a long time.

    To thank the crowd, he wrote ‘Roland, Je t’aime’ in the clay (Roland, I love you) and laid in the bare space he made in the middle to make a ‘T’ with his body. “It was something sincere from me,” a relieved Tsonga said after the match. “People always support me a lot during those matches, and so it was a possibility for me to thank them.”

    Tsonga says the break helped Nishikori talk to his coach, Michael Chang, and readjust his tactics.

    “I felt that when he was back on the court he came with different intentions altogether and therefore this is something that upset me. I thought, I’m going to continue with my plan. Everything is going to go on really smoothly. He turned around the match at that moment,” said Tsonga, who became just the second Frenchman in the Open Era, after Henri Leconte, to reach multiple semi-finals in Paris.

    Earlier on Suzanne Lenglen, Wawrinka surprised even himself by dismissing 2009 champion and No2 seed Federer 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (4) to triumph in the all-Swiss battle.

    In windy and gusty conditions, Wawrinka hit 43 winners to just 28 unforced errors and saved all four break points he faced in the match making it the first time since the 2002 US Open that Federer has failed to break his opponent’s serve in a grand slam match.

    A Roland Garros junior champion in 2003, Wawrinka was expected to have his better results on clay but he had his major breakthrough when he won the Australian Open on hard courts in 2014. The world No9 is through to his first French Open semi-final and has beaten Federer for just the third time in 19 appearances.

    “I don’t think no one was happy with the wind. But it’s quite clear what I have to do when it’s conditions like that and when I play Roger. I need to play really heavy. I know that when I play my best tennis, I can play so heavy from both sides that it’s really tough for the opponent to play,” said Wawrinka.

    “That’s why Roger was struggling today. It’s because I was playing so well. I’m really proud for the match I did today, especially in three sets.”

    Federer said he tried changing his tactics many times but nothing worked.

    “Obviously I was not going to leave the French Open without having tried everything out there,” said the 17-time major winner.

    “So it was tough. Would have loved to have won the breaker, would have loved to come back in the first set, but wasn’t so. Stan was clutch on the big points and really didn’t give me much, so it was a credit to him for playing so well today.”

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