Federer puts Tsonga in his place

The fourth round match opening the eighth night session on Rod Laver Arena turned the spotlight on Roger Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  Federer, the 6th seed had played pretty well, but would be facing his first real test this tournament against the man who took him to five sets at the 2013 Aus Open.  Tsonga had played a reasonable tournament without ever setting the world on fire.

Federer served first and was untroubled to hold on and lead 1-0.  He then attacked Tsonga, who for the moment seemed to be on the back foot and not as sharp as we know him to normally be.
Federer held again with Tsonga running no interference, and Tsonga hit the scoreboard finally in the fourth game but had let the 6th seed slip away.

With Federer, any sense of an opponent being even slightly off his game is taken and used to the fullest advantage.  Tsonga was not at his best, and Federer amplified it by elevating his effort and picking the timing and placement to trouble Tsonga most.
The single service break held strong,  and while he was serving as well as he was, Federer was supremely confident that one break would always suffice.
With Stefan Edberg ringing in his ears Federer made the excursion to the net a few more times, and with success, and generally had an enjoyable first set win 6-3.

Tsonga began the second set and served well to take the lead and hoped that by serving second Federer would feel some pressure of playing catch up.  However when a player is serving as efficiently as Federer had been and continued to, and without due pressure from his opponent, catch up is hardly relevant.
Federer won all but three points on his serve for the entire set, and hit 21 clean winners as against 5 unforced errors.  Tsonga was never going to touch the Swiss serve with those numbers, despite playing his best tennis for the match during this period.
No breaks of serve occurred until, when serving at 5-5, Tsonga caught a shocking piece of luck at deuce just after acing Federer to save a break point. Federer's backhand caught the edge of the top of the tape and literally rolled over the top of the net and dropped over the other side dead to bring up another break point.  This one wasn't saved and Federer was able to serve out the set 7-5 and lead two sets to zip.

Federer waited courteously until the third game of the third set to capitalise on an increasingly ragged looking Tsonga.  The French player was playing some terrific shots amongst a collection of garbage that was swept up neatly as always by Roger  the Garbo.  Again never in trouble on serve against a poor returning performance by Tsonga's high standards, Federer simply played out time, using the single break and successive easy holds to build combustible pressure inside the French 10th seed who almost exploded at one point.

This was an off the Yarra cruise for Federer, and he pulled into dock after a relaxing day with the result he probably had pencilled in 6-3 7-5 6-4 and another quarter final obligation to meet.