I must admit I haven’t watched a great deal of men’s tennis this week.  One match I did get to watch was the quarter-final between Kevin Anderson and Grigor Dimitrov.  Oh my god.  Poor Kevin.  In tennis, I never use the word “choke”.  I hate the word and I feel some people have begun using it interchangeably for situations that are NOT chokes.  If there was ever a choke and a situation where I would use the word, it would be to describe what happened to Kevin.  Anderson had two match points at *6-5 in the deciding set of his match with Dimitrov and on the second of those, missed a shot that I can’t even comprehend how he missed.  He was right at the net and it seemed almost harder to direct the racquet to hit the ball into the net.  Anderson did well to get it into the tiebreak, but ended up double faulting on match point for Dimitrov.  It was a horrible ending for Anderson and it could take a while to get over that match.

Anyway, back to the Toronto final, which will feature Roger Federer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  I think most people expected Federer to make it, but NO-ONE saw Jo coming through.  Tsonga has had a remarkable week, defeating Novak Djokovic (6-2 6-2 in the third round), Andy Murray (7-6(5) 4-6 6-4 in the QF) and Grigor Dimitrov (6-4 6-3 in the SF).  There were signs at Wimbledon when he played some stirring tennis to get past Sam Querrey in the second round and reach the fourth round, but I never expected that a return to form would happen so suddenly and all in one tournament.  Can we say Jo is back after one tournament? He’s played some pretty amazing tennis.  I watched the end of his matches with Djokovic and Murray, and he seemed to have that intensity back, which has been missing for much of the year.

Federer had a couple of tough matches; he was pushed to three sets in the third round against Marin Cilic, 7-6(5) 6-7(3) 6-4 and in the quarter-finals against David Ferrer, 6-3 4-6 6-3.  The biggest shock of the week was Federer losing a set to Ferrer.  In the semi-finals, Federer defeated Feliciano Lopez, 6-3 6-4.  In his first tournament back since Wimbledon, Fed has done well to make the final.  It was a very workable draw, but sometimes it is not always as easy as it looks.  I haven’t seen any of his matches since they have all been at night.

An in-form Tsonga makes this final an intriguing propositon.  Jo has a reasonably good record against Federer, winning four times.  This includes two victories at Grand Slams and two victories in Canada, although both came in Montreal.  There’s no doubt if Tsonga performs to the level that he has done for much of this week then he is in with a chance.  The key will come down to who serves better.  A tough one to call and i’m looking forward to watching this final, which begins at 8pm in the UK.

Prediction: Federer d. Tsonga in 3 sets