After a year without playing, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga sees “the end of the tunnel”. The French, still sixth national player (60th world), explains his latest physical setbacks. And also takes the time, already, to look back on the past.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga confided in a podcast for Eurosport, explaining in particular that his back pain still detected at the end of the 2019 season “normally arrives at 70, not at 35”. The former world n ° 5 (in 2012) assures him, he “doesn’t want to stop”: “When I get up in the morning, I’m all excited just at the idea of putting on my grip. . I feel that I’m going to vibrate again, that things are going to happen… I see the end of the tunnel, I train every day – sometimes with Gael Monfils – and I have lost ten kilos. ” However, he does not yet know when he will play again, he who has not played a match since his first round of the Australian Open lost almost a year ago to Alexey Popyrin. Led two sets to one (6-7, 6-2, 6-1), he gave up.
???? His fight to find the courts, his ups and downs, his image… Jo-Wilfried @ tsonga7 says it all!
Find him in DiP Talk, the tennis podcast featuring @ArnaudPasquale, on all the good listening platforms ???? https://t.co/YF9INjjeMu#HomeOfTennis pic.twitter.com/aiDvMuJIOz
– Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) January 12, 2021
“I will play until the flame goes out, but one thing is certain: if I go through these doubts and pains again, yes, I will stop.” Asked for a quick review of his career, Le Manceau has “no bitter taste in people’s behavior”: “I played with monsters, almost the four greatest of all time! I’m proud of them, but I would have loved that they didn’t exist (laughs). ” In addition to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the one who is still 60th in the world thanks to the freezing of the ranking (because of the coronavirus pandemic) thus wants to speak of Andy Murray, who dominated in 2016. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga remains the last French player to reach the final of a Grand Slam tournament, beaten in 2008 by Novak Djokovic in Australia (4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6).
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