This is the only match of the day and I predict that it won’t be a close one at all. Roger Federer has been in a quite tough draw for the last few rounds and he has been successfully overcoming all the obstacles, including Nikolay Davydenko in the quarter finals, a player who had defeated Federer in the last two matches where they had faced each other. It’s a fact that the Russian player choked a lot during the match and actually outplayed Federer for a set and a half, but during that period nobody in the circuit would have handled Davydenko because he was playing at an unbelievable level. We actually need to give credit Federer for the fact he was able to hang in there and then, cause the choke of Davydenko with a consistent good level of tennis. Federer is playing well right now, as it was clearly visible against Hewitt and I expect that to be clearly visible once again today because Tsonga is actually a great matchup for him. People may think that it isn’t due to the fact that the head to head is tied at 1-1, but Federer won the first match between the two by 6-4 6-1 and then was up in the second match by 6-7 6-1 5-1, until he had a huge choke and lost the match by 7-6 in the third set. I say the matchup for Federer is quite easy, because Federer will punish Tsonga’s poor backhand with his crosscourt forehand shots, while he will also explore Tsonga’s average movement and poor hitting on the run with his down the line backhand shots. Federer can also counter punch quite well when it is necessary and so, we will also see Federer taking advantage of the pace created by Tsonga’s powerful forehand shots to hit some amazing winners on the run, including passing shots from both wings, when Tsonga comes to the net. The only way Tsonga could make this match close would be with his serve, however note that the surface isn’t quick enough for that, as it was shown against Djokovic, where Tsonga was broken 6 times and couldn’t win more than 68% of the points played on his first serve, even though Djokovic played a poor match and was clearly struggling with a indisposition. The spread of 6 games may seem a fair one in here, like it was in the game between Murray and Cilic yesterday, however note that the matchup is completely different, as Cilic was actually a tough matchup for Murray, while Tsonga is a quite easy matchup for Federer. The French had never played a 5 sets match before on his career until he had two in a row on his last two matches on this tournament and so, I believe he will also be too tired to make this very tough match for him a close one. I expect Federer to win this match with an advantage of about 8 games and so, I’ll be taking him minus the games in here.