What happened to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Roger Federer in their Montreal match?

Video clips: First set tie-break | Third set tie-break

In one of the most bizarre and wildly dramatic matches of the year, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga somehow rose from the ashes to recover from a two break deficit in the third set to defeat Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the Montreal Masters. Normally making a comeback in a match of this magnitude would be associated with great fighting spirit and mental fortitude. Yet as spectacular and unlikely Tsonga's come-from-behind victory was, there was no way that Tsonga's performance could be described like that.

Tsonga had just played a superb first set of tennis, then it went quickly downhill after that. In fact, it was a high quality first set all-round from both players. What I really liked about Tsonga at the start of the match was how he approached this match, as relaxed as I'd ever seen him. Energetic, but not overdoing it. Sometimes Tsonga tries extremely hard to create pace that it looks like he's slapping at the ball. Perhaps if he took that mindset in this match, he would have created too much pressure on himself. But it's not like he tried to hit Federer off the court as well.

Instead he focused on trying to mix things up to avoid getting into the situation of being dragged into playing shots that he didn't want to. He knew that in order to do that, he had to avoid long baseline rallies. It was a battle of first strike tennis, of trying to control the point early on and looking to follow it up at the net. It wasn't outright aggression, and he didn't look like he was muscling the ball as much as he sometimes does. He was prepared to use his athleticism if he needed to. I really liked his movement. It was so smooth that it looked like he was dancing around the ball at times.

In fact, when having a look at the match-up, Federer and Tsonga share a lot of similarities. They both don't like to hang around on points on serve, and both have all-court games. But more so because both have such naturally fluid and instinctive games, though Tsonga is more explosive while Federer is more effortless. It was an entertaining display of all-court tennis and superb athleticism.

I wonder how much of an effort Federer made to play targeted tennis, as in targeted towards playing against Tsonga specifically or whether he relied more on his own natural game. Because I didn't see Tsonga being pressured that much to play uncomfortable shots, shots that were a specific weakness for him like Federer did to him in Madrid last year indoors. Maybe it was simply that Tsonga didn't allow him to, which is at least partially what happened.

The first set went with serve, and despite both players playing relatively aggressively, it was a clean set of tennis. Both Federer and Tsonga had their one chance to break, one game where they had break point opportunities. Federer saved his break points with great serving like he often does. Federer had one chance to break with a makeable forehand passing shot into the open court. He missed it, then his chance quickly disappeared after that.

It was a high quality first set tie-break, underlined by an amazing dive volley on set point from Tsonga. After hitting an off-forehand approach shot, Tsonga had all of his body weight moving towards the right trying to cover the centre of the court. Federer wrong-footed Tsonga with a sharp slice backhand crosscourt angle that looks completely unreachable and unplayable given Tsonga's position. Tsonga is big and strong, but also wonderfully athletic and somehow manages to violently push his body in the other direction to dig out the volley from the ground. I don't think I recall seeing a shot like that before. Usually dive volleys are used to reach shots that would normally be too far out of reach. The crowd erupts and Federer's puzzled that he managed to lose the point.

I can't imagine any greater adrenaline rush than what Tsonga experienced in the first set. Surely there had to be an emotional letdown. Tsonga was so charged up from that tie-break that he was still moving his feet the way he had then, but it wasn't matched by how he was swinging the ball so he made a stack of wild errors. But that's all I thought it was at the time, a concentration lapse.

It was inexplicable that Tsonga could continue to play like that for almost two entire sets. Well it ended up being one and a half sets given that the third set extended further than originally thought. It is amazing how quickly Tsonga can lose games and points in a match. It felt like the second set lasted around 5 minutes, though of course it was more than that. The majority of errors that Tsonga was making were early on in the point, often on the follow-up shot on the serve.

Part of the reason was because he was struggling with his first serve percentage, but after seeing how he played in the third set, it was definitely a case of a lack of effort as well. His mind wasn't on the job, and tactically, he had lost track of what he needed to do. He carelessly tried to hit his way out of trouble and made no attempt to come to the net, or structure his points in a way that would allow him to. To me, it looked like he was solely concentrating on hitting the one shot on serve, and the groundstroke following that and that was it.

There wasn't a whole lot to admire during that stretch of Tsonga's poor passage of play, so I had a look at his service action which he was struggling with. It's a very front-on action, and his racquet face is quite flat as he hits it into the court, rather than cutting across the side of the ball like other players. It looks like he generates all of his spin on the kick serve at the very end of the stroke when he hits down on the shot. It looks like a potentially inconsistent stroke, then again it's easy to conclude that in a match where it is.

Federer continued playing the second set relaxed like in the first set, being able to control the proceedings more because Tsonga wasn't throwing him anything different. He didn't show any signs of taking his foot off the accelerator despite Tsonga not showing any intensity. He played with freedom tactically as well, implementing whatever shots he wanted to.

The second and third sets continued in the same vein, until late in the third set at 5-1 when Tsonga suddenly started hitting out, with the big difference being that he was moving better and more energetically and that's why he made more shots. It looked like the typical scenario of players playing better when they no longer believe they can win. Except that in this case, it couldn't reasonably explain why it happened because Tsonga looked like he had no chance of winning much earlier than that.

He had this hangdog look about him that surely would have been partially responsible for Federer losing concentration. Catching him by complete surprise by suddenly forcing Federer to come up with more complete points to win them. It's probably a similar effect as faking an injury, except of course in this case it was legitimate and not at all poor sportsmanship.

Federer is an experienced player anyway, and he hasn't blown a lead like this in a long time. If I was him, I'd just write it off as a unique situation and not be bothered about it. Surely no one will think it's a lack of confidence, given what he has achieved recently.

Just when I thought that the third set was turning around in a way that was beyond belief, there were several twists and turns left. Tsonga went on a big streak of winning points late in the third set, and goes up 0-40 on Federer's serve at 6-5. Three match points, but Tsonga doesn't convert. Tsonga misses a couple of makeable backhand passing shots on match points, though admittedly that has never been a strength for him and the see-saw nature of the match continued into the tie-break. It was an appropriate and fitting finish to the match.

Federer starts to panic a bit, trying to find his way to the net as much as possible. Tsonga had the momentum going in his favour if he could block out the match points he lost in the third set, and that's what he did. He continued to charge at Federer in the same way as he had the last ten minutes, and was rewarded for it with an unlikely win. Unfortunately after such an epic match that had the crowd on the edge of the seats, it ended with a muted celebration after a Federer double fault.