Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
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| Nickname(s) | Jo | |
| Country |  France |
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| Residence | Le Mans, France | |
| Date of birth | April 17 1985 | |
| Place of birth | Le Mans, France | |
| Height | m ()[[1] | |
| Weight | 90 kg (200 lb) | |
| Turned Pro | 2004 | |
| Retired | Active | |
| Plays | Right, Two-Handed Backhand | |
| Career Prize Money | $281,963 | |
| Singles | ||
| Career record: | 7-6 | |
| Career titles: | 0 | |
| Highest ranking: | No. 53 (October 8, 2007) | |
| Grand Slam results | ||
| Australian Open | 1st (2007) | |
| French Open | 1st (2005) | |
| Wimbledon | 4th (2007) | |
| U.S. Open | 3rd (2007) | |
| Doubles | ||
| Career record: | 0-2 | |
| Career titles: | 0 | |
| Highest ranking: | No. 558 (April 26, 2004) | |
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (born April 17, 1985) is a professional tennis player. A French citizen, born in Le Mans, he has a French mother and Congolese father, Didier Tsonga. He had a successful junior career, winning the U.S. Open Juniors title in 2003 by defeating Marcos Baghdatis in the final, and also reached the semi-final stage of the other 3 Grand Slam events.
Tennis career
In January 2007 he received a wild card into the 2007 Australian Open, where in only his second senior Grand Slam match he met up with sixth seed Andy Roddick. Tsonga's singles rank at the time was number 212 and — in the longest tiebreaker in Australian Open history — he defeated Roddick in the first set (20-18). Tsonga forced a tiebreaker in the second, losing it 2-7, and went on to lose the match 7-6 (18), 6-7 (2), 3-6, 3-6. At the time, he was just 21 years of age.
So far in 2007 he has won 4 Challenger titles in Tallahassee, Mexico City, Lanzarote and Surbiton. Tsonga qualified for the 2007 Queen's Club Championships while at the same time playing in the Surbiton Challenger, which he won. Between the two events, he scored victories in 5 matches in the space of 2 days. In the second round of the Queen's main draw he met the sixth seed and defending champion, former world number one Lleyton Hewitt, ranked 16 in the ATP rankings. Tsonga won the match after two tiebreakers, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2), to seal his most prominent victory since his triumph over Carlos Moya, then ranked 6th in the world, at Beijing in 2004. However, suffering from fatigue, Tsonga went on to lose to promising Croatian youngster Marin Čilić in the following round.
At Wimbledon 2007, where he was awarded a wild card, he reached the 4th round (his first time past round 1 of a Slam), defeating Julien Benneteau, Nicolas Lapentti, and Feliciano Lopez. His run was halted by his countryman and friend, 12th seed (14th-ranked) Richard Gasquet, in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-4. He did not beat a seed in coming to the fourth round. (A potential seed he would have faced had dropped out.) The win brought his ranking up from #110 to #74, his first time inside the top 75.
Trivia
- Players on the ATP circuit have nicknamed him the Muhammad Ali of tennis due to his striking resemblance to
Muhammad Ali who is one of his heroes.[2] - During childhood, he and Gael Monfils spent hours practising trying to get a serve like Andy Roddick[3]
Titles (8)
| Legend (Singles) |
| Grand Slam (0) |
| Tennis Masters Cup (0) |
| ATP Masters Series (0) |
| ATP Tour (0) |
| ITF Titles (8) |
Singles (8)
| No. | Date | Tournament | Surface | Opponent in the final | Score |
| 1. | July 5, 2004 |  Nottingham |
Grass | Alex Bogdanovic |
6-3 6-4 |
| 2. | July 26, 2004 |  Togliatti |
Hard |  Ladislav
Svarc |
6-3 7-6 |
| 3. | March 28, 2005 |  Leon |
Hard |  Glenn Weiner |
7-5 7-5 |
| 4. | October 9, 2006 | Rennes |
Hard Indoors |  Tobias
Summerer |
1-6 7-5 7-5 |
| 5. | April 2, 2007 | Tallahassee |
Hard |  Rik De Voest |
6-1 6-4 |
| 6. | April 9, 2007 | Mexico
City |
Hard | Bruno Echagaray |
6-4 2-6 6-1 |
| 7. | April 30, 2007 |  Lanzarote |
Hard |  Paul
Baccanello |
6-2 6-2 |
| 8. | June 4, 2007 | Surbiton |
Grass |  Ivo
Karlovic |
6-3 7-6 |
Singles Grand Slam performance timeline
To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the French Open in Paris, which concluded on June 10, 2007.
| Tournament | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | Career SR | Career Win-Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Open | A | A | 1R | 0 / 1 | 0-1 |
| French Open | 1R | A | A | 0 / 1 | 0-1 |
| Wimbledon | A | A | 4R | 0 / 1 | 3-1 |
| US Open | A | A | 3R | 0 / 1 | 2-1 |
| SR | 0 / 1 | 0 / 0 | 0 / 3 | 0 / 4 | N/A |
| Grand Slam Win-Loss | 0-1 | 0-0 | 5-3 | N/A | 5 / 4 |
Davis Cup matches are included in the statistics.
A = did not participate in the tournament.
SR = the ratio of the number of singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.
References
- ^ http://frenchballs.loco-web.com/tsonga/page_profil.htm]
- ^ Holt, Sarah (june 30 2007). The Muhammad Ali of tennis. BBC Sport.
- ^ Holt, Sarah (june 30 2007). The Muhammad Ali of tennis. BBC Sport.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
