Federer shapes up for Friday’s clash with Tsonga
By ANIThursday, January 28, 2010
MELBOURNE - Roger Federer is expecting to meet his physical match in Friday night’s Australian Open semi-final showdown with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Nicknamed Ali for his uncanny resemblance to the world’s greatest-ever boxer, Tsonga has again shown at Melbourne Park that he also packs a frightening knockout punch.
The charismatic Frenchman climbed off the canvas, recovering from two sets to one down, to deliver the quarter-final KO blow against Serbian powerhouse Novak Djokovic in a thrilling rematch of the pair’s 2008 final at Rod Laver Arena.
“Yeah, he’s a dangerous player. Very athletic obviously. A good athlete so in the semis it’s going to be tough,” Fox Sports quoted Federer, as saying fter reaching the last four with a four-set comeback victory over Nikolay Davydenko.
“I think I’ve only played twice as far as I remember, so I don’t know that much about him,” he added.
The mighty Swiss chooses not to remember too much of their most recent encounter, when Tsonga overcame a 5-1 third-set deficit to snap the world No.1’s 21-match winning streak last August in Cincinnati.
Tsonga is drawing confidence from that last-up win and also shrugs off as irrelevant the gulf in big-match experience between the two heavyweight combatants.
“Roger has experience because he won like 15 or 16 grand slams,” the world No.10 said.
“But he won the first one without experience, so I think at this level you never know what’s going to happen. I have to play my best tennis because Roger played unbelievable again because Nikolay was in good shape, so it’s going to be tough.
“But I will give everything and we will see.”
Tsonga has an enviable 15-3 record in Melbourne, making the last eight or better for three straight years. (ANI)
