Soon to be 37 years old, the former French world number 5 will retire after the French Open.
“What do I do ? Why am I hurting myself like this? Is there a reason for me to make all this effort? These are the questions that prompted tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to consider retiring from sport. In a video published this Wednesday on social networks, the French announces that it will intervene after the next Roland-Garros tournament, which will take place from May 22 to June 5.
The former world number 5 will celebrate his 37th birthday in April. “A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to stop at Roland this year. This will be my 15th Roland”announces the player who has fallen to 220th in the world and who is coming out of four years plagued by injuries.
“My head tells me ‘you can play all your life’, but the body reminds me that my ability to surpass myself is no longer there. My body tells me ‘you are no longer able to go further than what I give you’. Before, that’s what I did every day.he continues. “The ultimate reason is to tell me, it’s the last thrill”he underlines with reference to the approaching Roland-Garros tournament. “Hopefully by then I’ll stay fit and be able to be who I’ve always been in this tournament. The goal is to be myself, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga the tennis player. I’ve always wanted to be efficient, to set myself goals at the top. This will be the opportunity to do it one last time“, he insists.
“Plan your outing”
His body has given him almost no respite in recent years. In addition to an underlying sickle cell disease (genetic disease affecting red blood cells and causing great fatigue), he suffered from the knees, vertebrae, sacroiliac joint which calcified, forcing him to abandon in the 1st round. of the Australian Open in 2020. The 2021 season, he resumed it only in dotted lines, before ending it after a defeat in the first round at Wimbledon. His return to competition in 2022 is an opportunity for him to “plan (his) outing“, as he had indicated to AFP in February before the Open 13 in Marseille.
His career exploded in 2008, when, at 23, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won his first Masters 1000 in front of his home crowd in Paris. Le Manceau eliminates beautiful people. Successively: Djokovic, Roddick, Blake and Tsonga made the Argentinian Nalbandian his victim in the final (6-3, 4-6, 6-4). He becomes the new star of French tennis and Freed paints his portrait. This Parisian victory is his biggest singles title of his career, with the Masters 1000 in Toronto which he will win against Roger Federer in 2014.
Since his professional debut in 2004, Tsonga has won 18 singles titles and made one Grand Slam final at the Australian Open in 2008. He was beaten by Novak Djokovic. He also has a fine silver medal in doubles at the 2012 Olympics and a victory with France in the 2017 Davis Cup. In February 2012, Tsonga had reached fifth place in the world, the best ATP ranking of his career. Before him, only five French people had managed to reach the World Top 5, including Yannick Noah, Patrice Leconte and Sébastien Grosjean.