Long wait goes on for French tennis

For long-suffering French tennis fans, the agonising wait for a male champion at the French Open goes on, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga the latest to succumb to the Roland Garros jinx.
The 28-year old from the car-race town of Le Mans had motored smoothly into the last four without dropping a set and hopes were sent sky-high that at last Yannick Noah's iconic win in Paris 30 years ago would be matched.
But on a sultry June evening with the shadows lengthening on the Philippe Chatrier centre court, Tsonga went the way of so many of his compatriots before him, unable to produce the goods when it mattered at the temple of claycourt tennis.

Tsonga had looked every bit a winner after his straight sets demolition of Roger Federer in the quarter-finals and his matchup with David Ferrer had been hotly anticipated throughout France, leading TV news bulletins and fronting the widely-read L'Equipe newspaper.
But to start with, scheduling got in the way as the Tsonga-Ferrer match was placed second up after the other semi-final bout between defending champion Rafael Nadal and top seed Novak Djokovic.
That turned out to be a five set epic, won by Nadal, lasting 4 hours and 37 minutes which left the centre court faithful needing to take a breather before turning their attentions to the second of the last four games.

When Tsonga and Ferrer marched out to do battle, the court was half-empty and there was little electricity left in the air. Tsonga could not help but notice.
"It was a bit strange, you see, because there were half of the seats that were empty. This was a bit weird," he said.
However, Tsonga insisted that after such a classic match between the two top seeds, it was normal that there was some down-time.