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Federer haunted yet again by awesome Tsonga

Roger Federer will be growing tired of the sight of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's trademark celebration © Getty Images

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Roger Federer suffered a repeat of his Wimbledon exit at the hands of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who again beat the former world No. 1 as their Rogers Cup match lasted the distance on Thursday.

The belief in Tsonga grows with every big-name victory, and they are beginning to arrive more regularly after he came back from a two-set deficit to defeat Federer at Wimbledon. This time he did his work over three sets, earning a thrilling 7-6 (3) 4-6 6-1 triumph to reach the quarter-finals.

On this occasion it was the Frenchman who started better, matching Federer blow for blow to force a tiebreaker. The usual moments of class, in particular a whipped backhand cross-court winner, were there from the Swiss, but Tsonga dominated the breaker for control of the match.

Federer appeared to have stolen that momentum when he levelled in the second set, showing unbelievable recovery powers on one point when it looked like he had been blown off court. But unfortunately for the third seed, that is exactly what he was in set three - blown away as Tsonga powered on to a meeting with Nicolas Almagro, who defeated Richard Gasquet 7-6(5) 6-3.

Victory over Almagro could then see Tsonga face Novak Djokovic in the last four, after the world No. 1 bided his time before gaining the upper hand over Marin Cilic. Djokovic took time to get into his stride but eventually saw his class shine through, nicking the first set at the death on the way to an eventually straightforward 7-5 6-2 triumph.

The Wimbledon champion initially struggled to get to grips with his Croatian's serve, as neither man was able to create any break point opportunities. But Djokovic found his range at the end of the stanza to give himself an opening, and took his break opportunity at the first attempt to help close out the first set.

By the second set Cilic too had worked out a method to make some headway on his opponent's serve, but Djokovic's famous grit stood him in good stead as he saved all three break point opportunities he gave up. That allowed him to capitalise when the roles were reversed - finding two breaks to belatedly give himself comfortable passage into the next round.

Elsewhere, Tomas Berdych showed great staying power to defeat another Croatian - big serving Ivo Karlovic. Berdych gave his opponent four break point opportunities over the course of the contest but managed to save them all, allowing him to take the opening set with a solitary break of his own before closing out the match with a one-sided tiebreak.

The Czech eventually won 6-3 7-6(2) in an hour and 43 minutes. There were also wins for Gael Monfils against Viktor Troicki and Mardy Fish, who was too good for Ernests Gulbis.

Rafael Nadal's vanquisher Ivan Dodig proved maintaining a high standard of play is hard to do, as he inexplicably fell to Janko Tipsarevic in straight sets, 6-1 6-4. Stanislas Wawrinka was another to progress to the quarter-finals; the Swiss seeing off giant South African Kevin Anderson in three sets where there was little to choose between the two men - the 14th seed eventually winning 6-4 4-6 6-4.

Andy Murray's individual Montreal challenge may have been ended at the hands of Anderson earlier in the week, but he bounced back in the doubles with brother Jamie - surviving a gruelling deciding set to knock out eighth seeds Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer 6-2 2-6 10-8.

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