Au revoir, Roger

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga sent Roger Federer crashing out of the French Open quarterfinals yesterday to take a step closer to ending France's 30-year wait for a men's champion at Roland Garros.

Sixth seed Tsonga swept to a 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 triumph to reach his first semifinal in Paris and first by a home player since Gael Monfils in 2008.

The 28-year-will tackle Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer for a place in Sunday's final.

Victory also helped wipe out the misery of his quarterfinal in Paris last year where he had four match points against Novak Djokovic and lost in five sets.

Federer was bidding to win a record 58th career match at Roland Garros and reach his 34th Grand Slam semi-final.

The 17-time Grand Slam title winner also had the advantage of a 9-3 career lead over the French star, but Tsonga had been the man to beat Federer from two sets to love down in the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2011.

Tsonga had reached the quarter-finals without dropping a set, while 31-year-old Federer had struggled in his fourth round win over Gilles Simon, where he had to come back from two sets to one down.

But it was 2009 champion Federer who struck first with a break for a 3-2 lead which the French player retrieved for 4-4.

Tsonga took the opener when Federer shanked an ugly forehand.

One break in the second set for 2-0 was enough for a two-sets lead.

Federer had come back from two sets to love down last year in his quarterfinal win over Juan Martin del Potro and in 2009 in the fourth round against Tommy Haas.

But there was to be no miracle this time as a break in the seventh game of the third set put Tsonga on his way.

It was all over after a one-sided one hour and 51-minute affair, with Federer undone by 34 unforced errors and a brilliant performance under pressure by his opponent.

Serena Williams proved she is fallible after all with a mid-match implosion against Svetlana Kuznetsova yesterday but again underlined her rapacious appetite for grand slam silverware to set up a semifinal against Sara Errani.

A 6-1 3-6 6-3 scoreline in the 31-year-old's favour disguised a fitful performance from the American, who started like a runaway express train, came to a grinding halt in the face of a fierce Russian revival, then re-stoked the fire to charge to victory.

The win for the 2002 champion took her current sequence of victories to 29 and few would bet against her extending that to 30 against last year's runner-up Errani, who got the better of fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska.

Despite being ranked fifth in the world, Italian Errani had never beaten a top-four player before and wavered when serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set, surrendering her serve to love. However, she recovered to win 6-4 7-6 (6).

Relishing the Parisian clay as she did last year, she managed the difficult feat of out-manoeuvring Radwanska in a match littered with service breaks.