It may now prove to be the match Andy Murray required to hone his competitive edge for the battles ahead, but for long enough it was the last thing he needed at Wimbledon last night as he fought for his sporting life.
This tournament has taken on implications beyond a single title itself for both Murray, who is seeking to generate traction in his bid to close the gap on current world number one and lifelong rival Novak Djokovic and for Roger Federer, who came much closer to exiting the tournament in the course of his five set battle with Marin Cilic. Victory for either will strengthen the belief that further Grand Slam success is to come.
Rarely, if ever, can the British number one have played in front of as empty a Centre Court as it was when his meeting with Tsonga got underway, but that was obviously a consequence of the drama that had gone before as Federer mounted his magnificent comeback. At the first opportunity, three games in, spectators started flooding back in as quickly as they could be accommodated. It was, then, pretty well full by the time he engaged in a tie-break that offered the shape of things to come as fortunes ebbed and flowed.
For a while it looked as if Murray might have broken Tsonga’s resolve as he raced through the second set 6-1 in 26 minutes, 50 fewer than that first had taken. However the Frenchman is a creature of mood and once his cleared with that ugly second set over and the agonising loss of the first 12-10 in the tie-break by then a distant memory in competitive terms, he raised his level and over the next hour and a half turned the match on its head.
Even Tsonga’s notoriously erratic backhand was becoming a punishing weapon and as he performed with apparent abandon there was a tentativeness to Murray’s play, the top seed left in the draw looking all too aware of the opportunity he has in the coming days.
Not that it was all one way traffic since Murray did manage to get a break ahead in the fourth set as well, but that might only have undermined his resolve further when Tsonga came up with a run of four successive games to level, striking a succession of passing shots off either wing.
He initially seemed to carry that momentum into the final set as he earned a further break point on Murray’s opening service game, but suddenly discovering that a match he had twice seemed to have under control was on the cusp seemed to have a galvanising effect as the world number two then took his turn to remind himself of the need to perform with the authority befitting his status and a run of five games took the match away from his opponent.
Murray admitted afterwards that it had been tricky to ready himself for the match because of what had gone before since it had seemed several times that the first semi-final was poised to end, yet he would be the first to accept that he could hardly claim he had been the worse affected of the two given that it was Tsonga who had fallen two sets behind.
Once they were all back in the arena the crowd meanwhile played their part and the home favourite enthusiastically fed off their support.
“I think obviously the wait, you know, is never easy because the match was close to finishing a few times. Like third set (in the Federer match), I think it was two all, love 40, so you were kind of warming up then.
“Then towards the end of the fourth set, you're warming up again because Marin had a bunch of chances there to finish it. So that's tricky, but then when you get out there, obviously it's up to you to create an atmosphere a little bit, too. It's totally understandable that's going to be the case after a match like that. That was a great match. The crowd were unbelievable today. They got two pretty good matches, as well, I think.”
The company he has kept in the course of his career has contributed to his haul of Grand Slam titles being smaller than it might be, but few men have ever shown greater fight on a tennis court as is shown by a record of 22 wins in the 29 matches he has played that have gone to five sets and Murray is moving ever closer to tennis greatness having now drawn level with Bjorn Borg on 51 wins at this venue.
It speaks well of him, too, that already four years older than Borg was when he retired in 1981, he is acutely aware that, for all his status in Scotland and Great Britain, there is much more to be done to be considered among the all-time global greats, noting wryly, when that was pointed out, that the Swede had won the tournament rather more often than he has.
There is still time to change that.
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