QUIMPER/STARNBERG, January 25, 2022
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has made a successful comeback to the tennis circuit with a first-round victory over Marc-Andrea Huesler from Switzerland at the Open Quimper Bretagne Occidentale on Monday.
The 36-year-old Frenchman entered the main draw of the €45,730 ATP Challenger hard-court tournament with a wild card and won 6-4, 6-3.
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Tsonga, ranked World No. 260, fired 13 aces and won 81 per cent of his first-service points to prevail after one hour and 16 minutes. The former Top 10 player was playing his first match since falling to Mikael Ymer in the opening round at the Wimbledon Championships in July last year. Tsonga’s appeal to receive a wild card for the Australian Open was rejected as the French Tennis Federation (FFT) decided to grant their reciprocal wild card for Melbourne to Lucas Pouille.
Tsonga, a winner of 18 ATP Tour singles titles and runner-up to Novak Djokovic at the 2008 Australian Open, had to deal with injuries in recent years but still is not ready to walk away from the game.
“I just want to play. Several times I wondered if I should continue, if my motivation still existed and I must say that it is intact. In the end, what drives me is passion,” Tsonga recently told Tout le Sport.
“I’m not afraid. I know when I’m going to stop but I want to keep it to myself,” he added.
In Quimper, Tsonga will next face the winner of the all-French encounter between No. 2 seed Pierre-Hugues Herbert and qualifier Alexandre Muller. The tournament’s top seed is Henri Laaksonen. The World No. 91 from Switzerland will start his title bid against Damir Dzumhur from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
