Game over. At 36, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga announces, in a video posted on social networks, to end his career after Roland-Garros. “It’s been several years where every day in the day there is a moment when I say to myself: What do I do ? Is there still a reason I’m trying so hard? “he explains, in this video. “My head tells me that I can play for life, but my body reminds me that I can’t go any further,” he continues.
“It will be my 15th Roland and I hope that by then I will stay in shape and be able to be who I have always been”, continues the tennis player in this same video, alongside his wife. Noura El Shwekh. Why Roland? “It’s the tournament that best represents everything I’ve done,” he replies. ” The decision is made. I got into my head that I had to stop at a time that I chose and at a time when I could still go on the field. »
“So many incredible moments, of joy shared with an audience that has given me so much”, also posted on Twitter the tennis player, saying “hope” “one more last thrill”.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had been absent from the field for more than a year due to recurring back pain. He returned in February 2021. “I spent days, weeks, months wondering if I was going to manage to play again or not, torturing my mind to know if it was better to stop or continue” , he then explained, on his return, in an interview with Parisian.
In recent years, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had become a monument of French tennis, becoming for a time the 5th best player in the world in the ATP ranking (252nd now). He has 18 singles titles and 4 doubles titles to his credit. He had won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012, with his colleague Michaël Llodra.