Sometimes Brad Gilbert is wrong.
Perhaps more often than he expects. He thought that Roger Federer would steamroll over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He had only lost to Tsonga once, in a meltdown with a 5-1 lead in the fifth set.
Federer took an early break and rode that to a first set. Then, he took the second set in a tiebreak. But Tsonga was able to take sets 3 and 4, and in four sets, Federer could not break Tsonga. If Federer looks back at his career, he may point to the lack of a superior return game that could have won him even more majors. Tsonga took an early break in the fifth set, and took that to a 6-4. Ultimately, Federer had a hard time returning serve and this lead to Tsonga using his big forehand to dominate the points.
This is the second consecutive year that Federer has lost in the quarters at Wimbledon, and the first time in a Slam that he has lost after taking the first two sets.
In the other semi, it seemed like Bernard Tomic was going to get a beat down from world number 2, Novak Djokovic. After going down two breaks and losing the first set, Djokovic had to be feeling good.
Tomic isn’t the speediest guy, but he does get to lots of shots. Djokovic used the drop shot effectively to win a few points.
Tomic plays a peculiar way of hitting. He is very similar to Miloslav Mecir hitting lots of off-pace shots up the middle, and then using his slice very low, but when he is pushed, he hits down-the-line with a hard flat shot and gets a winner. He had Djokovic muttering to himself. Tomic is compared to Murray, but his style is different, especially his willingness to hit big shots up the line, which Murray has been reluctant to do until recently. Tomic also likes to play shots up the middle while Murray prefers to slice crosscourt.
Tomic came back to take the second set and was up a break in the third set threatening the upset, but lost his serve twice. The fourth set was pretty even until Djokovic managed to string a few points together and break at 5-all. Djokovic then served out the match. Final score: 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
Djokovic matches his semifinals of last year. If he reaches the final, he will become number 1. Djokovic
Nadal is up an early break against Fish. Fish had only lost one serve the entire tournament, but Nadal is a different class of opponent and often breaks early in a match.
Murray and Lopez will take the court soon to determine the last semifinalist.