“I’m sure I played a few matches here and in Davis Cup where I would have been as fired up”, Murray told a media conference.
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The first four games on Centre Court went with serve before Murray got a vital break in the fifth, bringing up break point with a backhand cross-court victor before Tsonga tamely double-faulted.
Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had a almost impossible act to follow Wednesday on Centre Court: Roger Federer’s improbable and electrifying comeback from two sets down to Marin Cilic.
“He has won some tough matches here, he’s played a lot of tennis and I will need to play well”. Murray proceeded to win the next two games, with his opponent struggling to get into the set after putting so much effort into the opening one.
He found it in the fans.
Murray was two sets ahead and seemingly sauntering through to the semi-finals when Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came thundering back into the match with a belligerent serve and a bazooka of a forehand. “I want more out of myself”, Venus said.
Federer, aged 34 and 336 days, would also become the oldest man in the open era to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals since Ken Rosewall (39 years and 246 days) finished runner-up in 1974.
Querrey defeated Novak Djokovic in the third round, becoming the first American to beat a top-ranked player at Wimbledon since Kevin Curren downed McEnroe in the 1985 quarterfinals.
2013 victor Murray will now face 2010 beaten finallist Tomas Berdych in tomorrow’s semi-final.
Tsonga left the court for a bathroom break but he must have known how tough it would now be to beat a man he had only got the better of twice in 14 previous meetings, and never from a set down. It can help to go through games and stages in matches that are challenging.
“If you’re in that position in the next couple of matches, you know you’ve been there”, he said.
Tsonga started nervously but retrieved an early break and looked poised to take the set when he led 6-4 in the tie-break. At Wimbledon, the draw has finally set up for him to break through that threshold and reach a semifinal in 2016.
He also won 84 per cent of his first-serve points in that clash, six points up on his career average, and it is hard to see Tsonga getting on top of him.
“It is easier to say that you can recover after letting a two-set lead slip rather than do it. Murray had to block it out and start again”.
Murray was a beaten finalist at Wimbledon 12 months ago with John Peers but claimed the Australian Open title with Brazilian Soares earlier this year.
If Federer beats Marin Cilic in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, he will equal Jimmy Connors’ record of reaching the Wimbledon semifinals 11 times.
In a dramatic fourth set, Murray took the ascendancy when he broke Tsonga in the sixth game to take a 4-2 advantage.
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Tsonga was not too hard on himself, saying: “The finish line was far tonight”. “I came back strong on the third and fourth, but I didn’t play well in the fifth”. Both players looked to be marginally worn out during today’s match, which fizzled out in the end, finishing rather anticlimactically to the action that had looked to be on the cards in terms of the final set.
