Paris (AFP)
French Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, formerly ranked fifth in the world, announced his retirement from tennis after participating in the Roland Garros Championships, scheduled for May 22-June 5, in a video clip posted on social media.
“A few weeks ago, I made the decision to stop at Roland Garros this year, my fifteenth participation in Roland Garros will be,” said the Frenchman, who celebrates his 37th birthday on the current 17th and has fallen to 220th place in the world.
“It took me a long time to make that decision, every day for several years, there is a moment in the day when I say to myself ‘what am I doing, why am I hurting myself in this way, is there still a reason for me to do all this? efforts?”
And the Frenchman, who has suffered injuries in the last four years, added: “My mind tells me you can play all your life, but the body reminds me that my abilities to overcome myself no longer exist. My body tells me you can’t go any further than I give you.”
He confirmed that the decision to retire after his participation in Roland Garros came from the fact that I say to myself, it is the last excitement.
Tsonga has suffered from multiple injuries in recent years, in addition to sickle cell disease “a hereditary disease that affects red blood cells and causes severe fatigue,” he faced problems in his knees, vertebrae and joints, forcing him to withdraw from the first round of the Australian Open 2020, to return the following year He is eliminated from the same role in the English Roland Garros and Wimbledon championships.
Tsonga’s decision to resume his activity in the yellow ball stadiums this year came in order to “plan my retirement, as he explained in February before the Marseille tournament.
Tsonga lost the 2008 Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic, when the Serbian won the first of his 20 Grand Slam titles, reached the semi-finals twice in both French and Wimbledon, and lost to Roger Federer in the ATP final. Final year 2011.
He won silver at the 2012 London Olympics in the men’s doubles category alongside Michael Lodra, and was a player in the French Davis Cup-winning team 2017, and won two titles in the thousand-point Masters tournaments in Paris 2008 and Toronto 2014.