It is an important page in French tennis that is turning. At 37, Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga retired after being eliminated in the first round of Roland-Garros (May 22-June 5). “A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to stop at Roland this year. This will be my 15th Roland“: it is in a video posted on social networks that the player, who has fallen to 220th in the world and who is coming out of four years plagued by injuries, announced his upcoming retirement in a soft but determined voice.
One of the finest records in French tennis
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has signed one of the most beautiful pages of French tennis and has had a well-stocked trophy cabinet since his professional debut in 2004. The figures are impressive: 18 titles won (only Yannick Noah has done better), 45 victories against the Top 10, including 3 against the world No. 1, at least two victories against all members of the Big4 (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray), quarter-finals played in the four Majors and a final at the Open from Australia (2008).
In Grand Slam, he won a total of 121 matches and therefore holds the record for French victories. You should also know that of the 25 Grand Slam tournaments he has played since the Australian Open in 2008, Tsonga has been the Frenchman going the furthest 17 times. He is also the only player with Novak Djokovic to have defeated Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal 3 sets to nil in a Grand Slam tournament.
To this fine individual career, we must add a silver medal in doubles with Michaël Llodra at the London Olympics in 2012 and exploits in the Davis Cup, up to the title in 2017, with his friends Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet and Gaël. Monfils, the new Musketeers who will soon find themselves in threes. He will only miss this Grand Slam title which crowns the greatest. A title all the more complicated to win as he made his career during the reign of the Big 4. “What a run! Thanks for everything, Joe!“, reacted the ATP on Twitter where the FFT gave him “meet at Roland-Garros to vibrate together one last time“.
Promising from the start
The native of Le Mans (Sarthe) shines from his debut with the Juniors. Son of a former professional handball player and a teacher, Tsonga began his career at the Tennis Clubs of Trois Vallées in Sarthe. After a stint at the hope center of Poitiers at 13, he joined Insep two years later for two years. He won four singles titles, including the US Open, and reached the semi-finals of three other Grand Slam tournaments. These performances allow him to occupy the second place in the world on the circuit and augur a brilliant future among the greats.
Cascading wounds
If Jo-Wilfried Tsonga decided to retire at 37, it is mainly because his body demanded it. Since the beginning of his career, the tennis player has had to deal with a whole series of injuries and health problems. In particular an underlying sickle cell disease (genetic disease affecting the red blood cells and causing great fatigue). His knees, vertebrae, his sacroiliac joint which calcified, forced him to give up in the first round of the Australian Open in 2020.
He then only resumed the 2021 season in dots, at the end of February in Montpellier, before ending it with a defeat in the first round at Wimbledon. He returned to competition this year with the idea of ”plan (his) outing“and for his children to see that their father”is a winner“, he said in February before the Open 13 in Marseille.