ATP Montreal Masters Thursday Preview

Roger Federer vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Roger Federer looks to avenge two painful losses to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga when the two meet in the third round of the Montreal Masters.

Federer has been rattled by Tsonga in the past and the usually unflustered Swiss has a bit of a bizarre record against the big hitting Frenchman. They met in the quarters two years ago and Federer, generally one of the best front runners around, looked set for a comfortable win, leading 5-1 in the third. However his game evaporated and he suffered an inexplicable collapse, Tsonga eventually running out a 7-6, 1-6, 7-6 win. Federer does lead their head-to-head 4-2 and has beaten Tsonga twice this year but when they met for a third time in the last eight at Wimbledon, lightning struck twice. Federer led by two sets to love and at a tournament he has dominated for much of the past decade, he looked a certain winner. However Tsonga struck back to win in five and inflict one of the more painful losses of Federer's career.

Federer himself is at a loss to explain it. “I will not think about that Wimbledon match as much as I might think about the match we had here two years ago,” he said. “Both matches were, so to speak, not normal matches. One, I was up (5-1) in the third and I should have won. I never lose those. In Wimbledon, I lost in five sets. Again, that doesn't happen often to me. So these two matches were strange matches.”

Tsonga looked the more impressive of the two on Wednesday, easing past dangerous teenager Bernard Tomic 6-3, 7-6 while Federer took his time to see off lowly ranked wildcard Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 6-3.

“This makes you come down to earth again and you have to face reality suddenly,” Tsonga commented on playing Federer on Thursday. “Even if I beat him in Wimbledon, that doesn't mean I will be able to beat him all the time. He's still the best player of all time. I have my chances, but it's going to be difficult, of course.”

Michael Llodra vs. Ernests Gulbis

Michael Llodra plays recent Los Angeles champion Ernests Gulbis for a third round berth in Montreal.

You never ever know what to expect with Gulbis, he’s either brilliant or dismal, rarely in between but when he gets it going he’s worth watching as Juan Martin Del Potro found a couple of weeks ago. Gulbis put him to the sword in Los Angeles, on the way to winning his second career title.

Rather fittingly, it followed a run of four straight losses. Predicting the results of Gulbis’ matches is a little bit like the tennis version of Russian Roulette.

He’s received a wildcard this week, a combination of his recent form and few Canadian players with realistic prospects of winning a round in a field this strong. He ground out a tough win over Juan Carlos Ferrero, 7-5 in the third.

It was a similar case for Michael Llodra who stunned Mikhail Youzhny, one of many players ranked between 10 and 20, struggling for form right now.

Llodra is at his most effective indoors but his unorthodox style has the potential to be successful at this tournament where the steepling bounce helps the tall serve-volleyers.

Llodra leads 2-1 on the head-to-head but they have not played since 2008.