Tsonga shocks Federer in final

Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had one more surprise in his bag of upsets, beating second-seed Roger Federer 7-5, 7-6 to cap a scintillating march to the Rogers Cup title.

After knocking off world number one Novak Djokovic in the third round, taking out twice-champion and eighth-seed Andy Murray in the quarters and seventh-seed Grigor Dimitrov in the semis, Tsonga denied 17-time grand slam winner Federer a landmark 80th career title.

“I played well all this week, I beat many good guys,” said Tsonga. “It’s a big achievement because I worked really hard to come back from my knee injury last year. Unfortunately there is no secret…behind this there is a lot of work.

“I’m waiting for this since couple of months now. I was looking for my best level, today I had it and it’s great.”

Certainly there was no disputing that Tsonga‘s win was well-deserved, the 13th-seeded Frenchman’s hit list including players who had won seven of the last 10 Canadian titles (Djokovic 2012, 2011, 2007; Murray 2010, 2009 and Federer 2004, 2006).

It marked the first time since 2002 that a player had beaten the four top seeds to win a Masters series event.

In 16 career meetings Tsonga had beaten the Swiss maestro just five times but three came on the Canadian hard courts.