Federer vs Tsonga – A face-off between ‘great friends’ at the Roland Garros

Roger Federer and Jo Wilfred Tsonga will take on each other in the Quarter-Finals of 2013 French Open.

In September 1998, Guillaume Raoux, a Frenchman was defeated by a relatively unknown yet talented 17-year-old in Toulouse. It was his first victory as a professional tennis player and 899 wins later, he faces another Frenchman at his 34 successive Grand Slam quarter-finals.

Roger Federer takes on his ‘great friend’ Jo Wilfred Tsonga to test his resolve of getting in to the semifinals at Rolland Garros for the French Open.

The pair have met only once on clay back in 2011 in Rome where the Swiss disposed off Tsonga in straight sets, although the Frenchman knocked Federer out of the Wimbledon in the quarter-finals later that year.

Federer struggled against Gilles Simon, another Frenchman, is his pre-quarters at Paris, eventually winning the game spanning five sets. The Swiss won the first set 6-1, went on to lose the second and third 4-6, 2-6, before wrapping it up with a 6-2 and 6-3 to seal his place in the last eight.

Simon, seeded 15th at France, was a tough competition to the 31-year-old but the Swiss played his game and refrained from getting carried away by the match’s events.

Tsonga is a tougher opponent, meaning Federer is going to have to wrap this up as soon as he can and not giving Tsonga time and space to play his game.

“I’m looking forward to the match against Jo Willy. It’s a big challenge playing him here in Paris. He’s a great friend of mine. I think we’re both looking forward to this match,” Federer said.

Tsonga, on the other hand, is trying to emulate Yannick Noah, the last Frenchman to have won the French Open back in 1983.

This time last year, Tsonga faced Novak Djokovic and squandered four match points.

Jo Wilfred Tsonga and Novak Djokovic after last year’s Quarter-Finals at the French Open. The Serb trumped the Frenchman.

“Until the end of my days I will have it in my mind. Even though I have done better this year, it was a high point in my sporting career last year,” said Tsonga.

“Unfortunately, of course, the end was tragic, if I can put it that way, but it’s one of the major high points of my career.“

Tsonga will have to be at his best to beat Federer, His over-dependence on his fore hand could very well be exposed by the Swiss maestro who packs quite the forehand himself.

Tsonga has yet to drop a set in this year’s French Open and has admitted that playing Federer in Paris is special. He ousted the Serbian Viktor Troicki 6-3,6-3,6-3 at the pre-quarters and post-match spoke to the courtside-interviewer.

“It’s great to win again in three sets but in the following round it is going to be dreadful,” Tsonga said.

“Playing Roger here, you can’t dream better.“

4th June will also bear witness to another exciting Quater-Finals match featuring Spanish duo Tommy Robredo and David Ferrer.

The two 31-year old Spaniards will take on each other at the Quarter-Finals of the French Open.

Robredo comes into the quater-finals after an incredible comeback in the pre-quarters against another Spaniard, Nicholas Almagro. Having lost the first two sets 6-7 and 3-6, the 31-year-old came back into the game in incredible fashion to win the following three sets 6-4 each.

Robredo, who was out a for a long period last year due to a broken leg, will now face fellow compatriot, David Ferrer to seal a top-4 slot.

Ferrer has been on fine form this tournament and will looking to exploit Robredo to get into the top 4. Considered to be one of the best in clay after Rafael Nadal, Ferrer will be looking to win his first ever Grand Slam.

The winner of this match will go on to face the winner of the Federer vs Tsonga match in the Semifinals.