French Open: ‘French tennis and 30 years of hurt’

“It’s some additional thing they really have personally and it’s difficult for a federation to teach that to any player.”

France and Britain share an annual fortnight of tennis purgatory, but while the French enjoy a week of thrills and spills before missing out on the prizegiving, Britons wonder where the rest of their tennis players are, all the while expecting the number one to be there at the business end.

The best a Frenchman has done at Roland Garros since Noah was Henri Leconte’s final in 1988, but he was swept aside by Mats Wilander, while Britain has been able to enjoy – or endure – Tim Henman and Murray providing seven semi-finals and a final in the last 15 years.

Maybe the men should take the advice of Mary Pierce, the woman who ended France’s 33-year wait for a female French Open champion in 2000.

“There is definitely that extra pressure because you want to win for yourself and for the crowd, and your family,” she told the BBC. “I had my aunts, cousins, uncles here. You have lots of extra media attention, so there’s definitely more pressure.

“You have to mentally psyche yourself out and tell yourself it’s just another match, just another tournament.

“I know I’ve come through so many matches on that court because of what that crowd gave me – it can be just one fan with one word or little phrase – but there are some players that couldn’t ever deal with the pressure and expectations.”

Tsonga will do well to convince himself it is just another match when he steps onto court to face Federer in the quarter-finals, but with previous Grand Slam wins over the Swiss – and a draw that kept him apart from Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – the anticipation is building.

“I’m French, it’s in France, and of course there may be a bit more pressure, but for me it’s positive,” he said. “It’s positive pressure, because I have everything to win and I would say nothing to lose.

“But if I go far in this tournament or if I win, it’s going to be something huge.”