Surprisingly, this experienced pair have never faced each other on an outdoor hard court before and for my money there’s a bit of value on the Frenchman here.
Six of their seven career meetings have been on clay, with the exception being their very first clash, which was on indoor hard in Metz in the first round in 2007 and Tsonga won that one as underdog.
They’ve clashed three times at the French Open, with all of those matches being tight and Wawrinka winning two of them, but you’d expect that, with Tsonga hardly favouring the red dirt.
Tsonga will find the conditions that this match will be played on far more to his liking and I’m not convinced at all that the Swiss pair of Wawrinka and Federer should be the favourites to win this tournament now that Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are out.
No-one has ever won a major at Federer’s age in the men’s game, while Wawrinka must beat Tsonga and (probably) Federer to get to the final, and Stan seems a tad short in the betting to me.
Tsonga’s outdoor hard court service hold/break stats at main level in the past year are better than those of Wawrinka, with the Frenchman holding 90.2% of the time and breaking 21.7% of the time for a decent overall of 111.9.
Wawrinka’s overall mark is 108.5, made up of 84.9% holds and 23.6% breaks, so on those numbers Tsonga looks decent value in this one, although it should be noted that his record against top-five ranked opposition isn’t great.
Career-wise it’s only 27% on hard courts versus top-five opponents, but he hasn’t played them much of late on outdoor hard, with the most recent being a 6-7, 6-7 loss to Djokovic in slow conditions at Indian Wells.
Prior to that it was Djokovic again in the final of the 2015 Shanghai Masters, where he beat Nadal in the semi finals, so Tsonga hasn’t tested himself much versus the best on quick hard outdoor hard for a while.
He said at the start of the season: “Now, I don’t have pain [in my knee] anymore. I had pain for a few years and this gives me expectations for next season, as I will be able to play with my two legs.”
Tsonga looks fit and if he is at his best physically he stands a big chance as underdog against a Wawrinka who has hardly impressed so far and was again scratchy against Andreas Seppi in the last round needing three breakers to beat the Italian.