Tennis was an undercover operation on a drizzly day in Monte Carlo. Passing showers prompted the grounds crew to blanket Court Central with a green tarp during a pair of rain delays totaling 90 minutes. When play finally resumed, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga weathered two set points and five break points in a stormy first set before dismissing a dispirited Fernando Verdasco, 7-6 (7), 6-2, to reach the Monte Carlo quarterfinals for the first time.
This was a match Tsonga won with controlled aggression between the lines and a calmer clarity between the ears. Playing bold on big points, Tsonga erased all nine break points he faced, including three with punishing serves to hold for 3-2 in the first set.
Verdasco's best shot is his lefty forehand—he can whip it cross court with topspin and sidespin, or launch it inside out with a boomerang bend. He attacked Tsonga's weaker backhand to earn two more break points in the seventh game, but the fifth-ranked Frenchman showed guts, going for a biting second serve and following with a volley winner to save the second chance, eventually holding for 4-3.
One of the most expansive exchanges came in a 27-shot tiebreaker rally that ended with Tsonga missing a backhand to give Verdasco a 5-3 mini-break lead. The Spaniard was in charge of the next point when he hooked a cross-court forehand off the tape that trickled wide, a miss that proved costly.
Tsonga sometimes stiff-arms his two-handed backhand—he scattered 16 errors off that side in the first set—and when his backhand down the line missed the mark, Verdasco had double set point. Tsonga responded with a stirring running forehand that set up a winning smash; a brilliant forehand drop volley struck from the doubles alley followed by a forehand volley winner helped him scrape away the second. He closed the 63-minute set with a flurry of forehand winners, striking 17 winners overall compared to three for Verdasco, who never faced a break point yet came away with nothing to show for it.
Under duress, Tsonga went for it and Verdasco went away. The 2010 finalist's mood degenerated from sullen to self-pitying in the second set, as Tsonga won 20 of 25 points during one stretch in building a 4-0 lead. Verdasco has more game than he showed today, when he was content to spin his first serve in and wasn't willing to attack the net when he stretched Tsonga on the backhand.
Physical signs of capitulation were clear when Verdasco clanked his second double fault of the next game; some of the crowd responded with whistles of disapproval, which seemed to sting Verdasco into action. He saved two break points to hold for 1-4, then earned four break points over the course of Tsonga's final two service games, but he could not crack the fourth seed.
Playing for a spot in his first career clay-court Masters semifinal, Tsonga will face either Davis Cup teammate Gilles Simon or seventh-seeded Janko Tipsarevic in Friday's quarterfinals.