The top quarter of the Madrid draw opened up for Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stanislas Wawrinka when Novak Djokovic went down earlier in the week. Either Tsonga or Wawrinka will advance to the semifinals after they collide on Friday.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stanislas Wawrinka will be doing battle for the fifth time in their careers and for the second time during this current clay-court swing when they clash in the quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open on Friday night.
They just faced each other at the same stage of last month’s Monte-Carlo Masters, where Tsonga prevailed 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. The Frenchman now leads the head-to-head series 3-1, including 2-1 on the slow stuff. They have split a pair of French Open encounters, both of which went to five sets. Wawrinka won 4-6, 6-7(3), 7-6(5), 6-2, 6-3 in 2011 before Tsonga got revenge with a 6-4, 7-6(6), 3-6, 3-6, 6-4 victory last season.
Both players are in stellar form this year, especially Wawrinka at the moment. The 15th-ranked Swiss suffered a few heartbreakers earlier in 2013, but it is all coming together for him on clay. He reached the Monte-Carlo quarterfinals, won the title in Oeiras by clobbering David Ferrer, and so far this week he has taken out Marius Copil, Santiago Giraldo, and Grigor Dimitrov.
Tsonga has improved his record for the season to 21-6 following hard-fought victories over Robin Haase and Fernando Verdasco. The eighth-ranked Frenchman beat Haase 7-6(5), 7-6(2) on Wednesday before overcoming Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in round three. Like Wawrinka, Tsonga was also a quarterfinalist in Monte-Carlo.
Their previous clay-court showdowns not entirely withstanding, this is the surface on which Wawrinka would prefer to face Tsonga. The No. 15 seed will get more good looks at returning his opponent’s serve than he would on grass or a fast hard court. Look for Wawrinka to play his way into rallies and be able to dictate more than a fair share of groundstroke exchanges thanks to his one-handed backhand.
Pick: Wawrinka in 3
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