Paris: High-voltage drama was recorded in the match between Tommy Robredo and Nicolas Almagro as Roberdo became the first man in 86 years of Grand Slam history to come back from two sets down to win and reach the French Open quarter-finals here on Sunday.
Henri Cochet at Wimbledon in 1927 was the last man to achieve the feat. Roberto broke into tears, as he got the standing ovation from the crowd, after he won this hard-fought match against Almagro. He will now be making his presence felt for the fifth time in the quarter-finals of French open.
Robredo clinched a heart-racing thriller 6-7 (5/7), 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over 11th seeded countryman Almagro. His next challenge will be against his countrymen David Ferrer for a semi-final spot.
Nobody would have given a thought of after Robredo lost the first two sets. To make it tougher, he was behind in the third set 4-1 which almost brought curtains to his chances of making it to quarters. But he came back strong to win the third set and again won four back-to-back games in the fourth set to win it by 6-4.
However he was again trailing by 2-4 in the penultimate set of the match. Almagro won the first two games quite easily and was standing tall at 2-0. But Robredo came back for a 3-2 lead. Almagro finally lost the deciding set by 4-6.
Meanwhile, the Roger Federer will meet French sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who swept past unseeded Serb Viktor Troicki, 6-3, 6-3 and 6-3 to make it to the quarters of French Open.
Tsonga, one of three Frenchmen in the last-16, was seen as his country's best hope of ending a 30-year wait to crown a men's champion at the French Open.
