Roger Federer (1.2) v Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (5.8)

Federer dramatically lost the last time he met Tsonga, when he imploded having led 5/1 in the deciding set to lose 6/7, 6/1, 6/7 in Montreal last summer. However, in their one other meeting at the 2008 Madrid Masters the Swiss Maestro was a comfortable straight-sets winner.

Federer’s remarkable record of consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals now stands at 23 and he has reached 17 of the last 18 Slam finals, including eight of the last nine on hard courts.

However, his powers are definitely weakening, and dating back to his loss at the US Open final he’s lost six of his last nine matches against current top-10 players, with none of his three wins coming in straight sets. Federer also has a superb record in the slams against players ranked 4-12, with 20 wins in his last 21 such matches, although that defeat was the recent final in Flushing Meadows and he has had just one straight-sets win in the last seven such matches. In fact his overall record against players ranked 4-12 since the 2008 Masters Cup is a relatively poor one, with 15 wins in 24 matches and just eight victories in straight sets.

Tsonga is looking to reach his second Grand Slam semi having been the runner-up here two years ago. That time he thrashed Rafael Nadal in the semis 6/2, 6/3, 6/2 and is unlikely to be overawed by the challenge against Federer. The enigmatic Frenchman has also won five of his last 12 matches against top-five ranked players and taken at least a set in eight of those 12 matches. He has also won half his eight matches since 2007 when 4.0-7.0 to win pre-match.

Tsonga certainly looks like he is playing well enough to push Federer close and there is no value in the World Number One at the moment. We expect this match to go to at least four sets although would avoid Tsonga on the handicaps, as he does sometimes let sets go easily and then recover, as he did against Djokovic. If the match goes beyond three sets then it is highly likely that there will be at least 37 games as there has been in 16 of 18 semis at the Australian Open to go past three sets.

However, with the probability being that there will be at least one tie-break given the two player’s serving prowess’s, there is still a chance of at least 36 games even if the match is settled in straight sets and so we prefer the over-games call in this match.

Recommendation: Over 35.5 games at 1.83, 888 Sport