LILLE: Gael Monfils rose to the occasion as he upset Roger Federer 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 to help France level the Davis Cup final with Switzerland 1-1 on Friday.

After Stan Wawrinka had given the Swiss a 1-0 lead by beating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, Monfils was at his best against the world number two who has struggled recently with back problems.

Federer missed training this week after being forced to withdraw from his ATP World Tour Final against Novak Djokovic in London on Sunday.

He had only two short training sessions earlier this week and looked out of sorts while Monfils hit 44 winners including 10 aces.

The Swiss, who is chasing a maiden win in the team competition, dropped his serve five times and could not convert the two break points he earned.

It was a stark contrast to Federer’s superb display in London last week, where he eased past opponents but hurt his back during his semi-final victory over team-mate Wawrinka.

“Clearly I did feel that I had not hit and played and moved at all for five days, and Gael played well,” Federer told a news conference.

“It’s not like I couldn’t play at all. Those who saw the match saw that it was a proper match and he was the better player at the end.”

Monfils sealed his win in less than two hours on his first match point with a backhand down the line, getting a measure of revenge after his tough loss to the Swiss in the quarter-finals at the US Open, when the Frenchman lost in five sets after going up two sets to one and failing to convert two match points.

“That helped me a lot. At the US, I changed my game plan, I was like very close. I was like dominating him most of the match. Then maybe I had little nerves at the end,” Monfils said. “Today was a bit of the same, but I played much better, I had a different game plan and I delivered a more aggressive tennis.”

Switzerland looked as if they were in the driving seat after Wawrinka’s defeat of Tsonga who looked a pale shadow of his normally aggressive self against the world number four.

Wawrinka took the first set in just 26 minutes. Tsonga tried as hard as he could to loosen up and he did take the second set.

But after a knife-edge start to the third set, Wawrinka applied more pressure and Tsonga crumbled. A quick break for the Swiss in the opening game of the fourth set sealed the deal.

Wawrinka said that at 29 and a veteran of 33 Davis Cup single ties, he has come to know well how to deal with the acute pressures the Davis Cup applies.

“I know how to play those matches. I did so many big matches, so many important matches this year,” he said. “Today it was important to show them that I’m there. They maybe too much focused on Roger and maybe they forgot about me.”

Published in Dawn, November 23th , 2014