A Tale of Two Rogers

PARIS—A year ago at this time, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was content to be that rarity in the upper echelon of the game, the elite player who eschewed traveling and working with a regular coach. Today, with the help of his mentor Roger Rasheed (whom Tsonga hired to help him this year), Tsonga crafted a resounding, 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 upset of No. 2 seed Roger Federer here at the French Open, and put himself within two matches of what has been well-nigh unthinkable for a quarter of a century—a French singles champion at Roland Garros.

Mulling over the changes he’s undergone in the past year after today’s match, Tsonga said, “You know, before I was alone. But I think it was important for me to be alone, and to understand that what I’m doing—to know I’m doing it because I like it. Sometimes it’s tough to have somebody with you. They expect a lot. But you don’t know if you expect the same things.”

Tsonga went on to explain how, during that period he spent alone, he came to understand how much he enjoys his profession, and how much he wanted to improve a game that has always had the earmarks of greatness. He then hired Rasheed, who had coached (among others) Lleyton Hewitt, in order to tap into Rasheed’s “passion for the game.”

It seems that keg was brimful, and that was manifest today as Tsonga relied on those familiar tools—the atomic serve, the piledriver of a forehand, along with a re-tooled and far more effective and reliable backhand, to beat Federer more convincingly on red clay than anyone other than his nemesis Rafael Nadal has done so late at a major event.

It ought to surprise no one that Tsonga was able to pull this off partly because his preparation included a session with Rasheed, studying just how Nadal masters Federer here. Unlike Tsonga, Nadal is a left-hander, but then breaking down Federer on clay isn’t rocket science. It usually comes down to executing on two fronts: Taking time away, and working on Federer’s one-handed backhand.

Easier said than done, to be sure, but Federer was spot on in his analysis after the match: “The French guys, they always have much more energy here. I thought Jo played great today. He was in all areas better than me today. That’s why the result was pretty clean. No doubt about it. I was impressed by the way he played today.”

What turning point there was occurred in the first set, with Federer up a break at 4-3 and serving. He pulled ahead to 40-15, but ended up broken. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Roger back together again, because Tsonga, knowing that his best chance lay in suppressing and ultimately smothering Federer, was up to the task. From that point on, Tsonga’s game was electric, and as the games rolled by, fissures appeared in the Swiss’ game—and resolve.

Kept under constant pressure, Federer’s chin dropped lower and lower as the chant of “Tsonga, Tsonga, Tsonga” rang louder and louder. He went for a little too much with the backhand, attacked the net a little too soon, and made a hash of a surprising number of smashes. “Missing smashes goes hand in hand with missing so many other things,” he said. “You know, sometimes you get the overhead and you get a bit anxious and things just don’t go your way.”

That anxiety was not inexplicable; Tsonga more or less forced him into those mistakes because he was on fire with desire, and the French crowd just threw more fuel on the flame.

Tsonga was unrelenting, and he shattered—at least for now—our long-standing image of him as a spectacularly talented pro whose mind was prone to wander and, particularly in long matches, leak focus and determination. There was no letdown today, no careless game or temptation to take a break from the action and relax. Give Rasheed a fair amount of credit for that, too, for effecting that transformation was high up on his to-do list.

“Since couple of months, you know, I did a lot of effort,” Tsonga said. “I tried to manage my career as good as possible, and I was waiting for rewards because I’m practicing hard every day. And today, you know, I get the rewards.”

But as big, gratifying, and patriotically satisfying as this win was, we’re still left with the very question Tsonga himself phrased for us the other day, when he described what he needed to do at this stage of his career: “For me, the real challenge is not to beat one (top player) but to beat several, one after the other.”

Enter, David Ferrer, stage right.

With no disrespect intended toward Ferrer, I don’t think he was the player Tsonga had in mind when he articulated his mission. Ferrer may be the most under-appreciated No. 4 seed we’ve seen at a Grand Slam event in some time. And he’s the one Tsonga will have to bump out of the way in order to finish this tournament with a chance to accomplish those back-to-back victories over iconic rivals. This task won’t have the aura of glamour that might attend a match-up with Nadal or a Novak Djokovic, but that will only make Tsonga’s assignment more difficult. Keep in mind that Ferrer is ideally positioned to realize his own long-deferred dream of playing for a Grand Slam title, and the man now standing in his way is ranked lower (Tsonga is No. 8) and enjoys nothing like Ferrer’s reputation as a clay-court demon.

Anyone who’s even the least bit tempted to underestimate Ferrer need only look at his scores at this tournament. He hasn’t lost a set, and only one player (Feliciano Lopez) has gotten as many as five games off him in a set. Today, he beat Tommy Robredo, who made history here as the first man in the Open era to come back from a two-set deficit in three consecutive five-set matches, allowing him all of four games in a three-set win. Robredo put it bluntly after the loss: “David is a machine.”

The machine is taking his usual, low road into the semis. When a Spanish colleague pointed out to that he’d lost a grand total of just 40 games thus far and asked for a comment, Ferrer answered: “Well, I have no comment. I made to the semifinals. That’s the second time in my career. I’m very happy about this. I feel in very good shape at the moment.”

That’s about as verbose and analytical as Ferrer gets, although he did give a rare (for the tour), honest opinion about what he will need to do to topple Tsonga:

“His first serve and his forehand are very powerful. I’ll have to play long (deep) and on his backhand, because if he starts serving well and hitting his forehand, he is a very difficult player.”

Tsonga will have one extra day to bask in the glory of what he accomplished today, because the men’s semifinals are on Friday. Perhaps it’s only fair, for the obstacles looming ahead are formidable.