French Favourites Move On In Montpellier

Fans at the Open Sud de France in Montpellier will have plenty of local players to cheer on this weekend after second seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, third seed Richard Gasquet and Benoit Paire all won their quarter-final matches on Friday.

Two-time defending champion Gasquet fought off a mid-match surge from qualifier and fellow Frenchman Kenny De Schepper to advance 6-2, 5-7, 6-4. The third seed was unable to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set, but grabbed the critical break of serve at 4-4 in the deciding set and held in the next game to prevail in two hours and 16 minutes.

Gasquet is now on a nine-match winning streak in Montpellier and improves his record here to 18-3. He also boosts his FedEx ATP Head2Head against De Schepper to 3-0.

Next up for the defending champion is Benoit Paire, who received an unfortunate path to the semi-finals after Dustin Brown retired due to a lower back injury with the Frenchman up 1-0 in the first set. Paire is now 8-3 in 2017, including a semi-final finish last month in Chennai. Gasquet leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry with Paire 3-0.

Tsonga didn’t face a break point in defeating #NextGenATP star Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 7-5. He now matches the semi-final showing from his most recent appearance in Montpellier in 2010 (l. Monfils). The World No. 14 in the Emirates ATP Rankings has been on fire this week, dropping just 10 games in two matches.

Next up for Tsonga is the winner between Jeremy Chardy and fourth seed Alexander Zverev. Tsonga leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry with Chardy 3-1 and with Zverev 1-0, defeating the #NextGenATP star this past October in Shanghai.