If you had a Wimbledon Centre Court ticket today, you just experienced one of the best days of tennis in a very long time. Unfortunately, at the end of two thrilling singles matches both underdogs, Marin Cilic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came up short.
Federer vs Cilic
In the first quarterfinal, 9th seed Marin Cilic had a fabulous start against Roger Federer, serving huge and being absolutely deadly off the ground leading to a two sets to love lead in almost no time. Things were only getting better and at 3-3 in the 3rd set the Croatian found himself with 0-40 on the 7-time champion’s serve. Unfortunately for the 2014 US Open champion, tame errors led to the Swiss holding serve and taking advantage of a lapse in concentration from Cilic and breaking immediately in the next game and then holding to close out the set.
At 2 sets to 1 the match was very much still in Cilic’s hands and he showed that with comfortable holds. Near the end of the set Cilic found himself with match points on Federer’s serve but once again failed to get returns into play. In a close tie-break Federer missed a sitter forehand at 6-4 to take us into a 5th and final set but redeemed himself to take the tie-break 11-9.
The 5th was a battle of wills and Marin Cilic faltered. The first serve started hitting the target less and less and more errors crept into the Croat’s game. Before too long a forehand error led to Federer breaking for 5-3 and serving out the match comfortably putting him into yet another Wimbledon Semi-Final.
Tsonga vs Murray
In the other quarterfinal right after on Centre Court it was a similar trend; Andy Murray took a two sets to love lead before Jo-Wilfried Tsonga mounted a comeback.
The Frenchman lost the first set having several set points and after getting absolutely blitzed in the second set 6-1 it looked like the home favourite was going to head in for an early night though the 12th seed had other ideas.
Even though he took the third set with a single break of serve, the British #1 still looked in control of that match and that showed in the 4th when he broke for a 4-2 lead. However the French #2 at this stage felt like he had nothing to lose whatsoever and went for everything in his hitting zone leading to not only breaking back in the next game with stunning backhands but also breaking Andy Murray in his next service game too. The Frenchman would then go onto serve out the 4th and like the previous semi-final take us to a decider.
Unfortunately the 5th set wasn’t competitive. Once Murray saved a break point in the first game it wasn’t long before the Frenchman’s game fell apart with the Brit taking a 5-0 lead. Eventually Murray would finish the set off 7-6 6-1 3-6 4-6 6-1.
In the other quarterfinals Tomas Berdych beat Lucas Pouille in straight sets and big serving Canadian Milos Raonic beat Novak Djokovic’s conqueror Sam Querrey in 4 sets.
Tomas Berdych will now play Andy Murray in Friday’s semifinals and Roger Federer will face Milos Raonic.
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