Wawrinka scorches Tsonga to reach French Open final
PARIS: One year after his first-round loss in Paris, Stan Wawrinka
will be playing in the final of the French Open.
The eighth-seeded Swiss took on Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and 15,000 of his
most passionate fans and silenced them all to reach the final at Roland
Garros for the first time with a 6-3, 6-7 (1-7), 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 victory
on Friday. It was a consummate performance from the Swiss stylist and he
will harbour high hopes of taking a second Grand Slam title on Sunday
when he goes up against either top seed Novak Djokovic or third seed
Andy Murray.
The second semi-final on Friday was suspended until Saturday as a
severe storm approached Roland Garros with world number one Djokovic
leading 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 3-3 when play was halted at 1833GMT. Djokovic and
Murray walked off the court to jeers from the crowd, which wanted play
to continue.
The match is set to resume at 1pm local time on Saturday. Tsonga's
hopes of becoming the first Frenchman to win the title since Yannick
Noah in 1983 melted away on the hottest day of the championships - with
the mercury hitting 33 degrees Celsius - as Wawrinka won the points that
mattered. Wawrinka lived dangerously throughout, saving 16 of the 17
break points he faced during the gruelling three hour 46 minute contest,
and was a mightily relieved man when he fired down an unreturnable serve
to end the semi-final.
His triumph was greeted with loud boos from sections of the crowd but
Wawrinka cared little about being cast as the villain on a day when he
reached the second grand slam final of his career.
"It was a huge battle, very difficult physically, a lot of intensity
on both sides and it could have gone either way," said the 2014
Australian Open champion.
"He had chances to break me in the third set, but he had a great
tournament and deserves just as much as me to be in the final. "It went
down to two or three points. He had opportunities to break me in the
third set.
As is usual against Jo, it's been a very tough match. It was tough
but I'm happy I got through." Wawrinka should have guessed the kind of
day he was in for when he faced three break points in the opening game
of the semi - saving them all much to the despair of Tsonga and his
roaring cheering squad. Tsonga was soon ruing all those wasted
opportunities as he found himself a set and a break down at 4-3 in the
second set.
Trying to figure out where he was going wrong, Tsonga sat down and
spent the entire changeover with his eyes closed in deep meditation
while Wawrinka tried to cool himself down with an iced collar and by
pouring bottles of water over his head.
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