INTERVIEW: Tsonga out to upset the big boys in 2017

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  • Tsonga hopes 2017 will be his year.

    At 31-years-old and having wrapped up his 13th year as a professional tennis player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga can be forgiven if complacency started creeping into his game.

    Nearly nine years on from when the Frenchman had his breakthrough moment, reaching the Australian Open final before losing to Novak Djokovic, Tsonga is still in search of a similar result that can change his status from a perennial top-tenner, to grand slam contender and top-four threat.

    While Tsonga’s aware he is closer to the end of his career than its beginning, the world No12 firmly believes that he can challenge tennis’ top table and is willing to make all the necessary changes in his game in order to achieve that.

    “If I’m more consistent, if I play one or two full years, I think I can do something great,” Tsonga told Sport360 while promoting Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala World Tennis Championship, where he’ll be making his fifth appearance this December.

    “I finished the year pretty good, I played good tennis, a little bit different than the way I played the last few years. A little bit more aggressive, more coming to the net, I felt good and I hope I will continue on that way.”

    Leg and knee problems have heaped pain on Tsonga this season and forced him to tearfully retire from the third round at Roland Garros and the US Open quarter-finals. But he bounced back from both disappointments by reaching the last-eight at the Shanghai Masters, the final in Vienna and the quarters of the Paris Masters, beating world No4 Kei Nishikori en route.

    Tsonga factfile

    • Turned pro: 2004
    • Career high ATP ranking: 5th
    • Career record: W: 388, L: 180
    • Career prize money: $18,951,854

    “I think I changed a little bit my materials, we changed a few things in my game, in a positive way,” explains Tsonga. “I also changed my serve, which is a good thing for my knee but also for my game, because I’m saving energy.”

    Saving energy is something he won’t be doing much of this off-season, Tsonga already having begun his 2017 preparations last week. He opted out of being an alternate at the ATP World Tour Finals, saying he was planning on having his longest pre-season training period to-date.

    The Switzerland-resident believes 2017 will be “special”, particularly because of the fact he and fiancé Noura El Shwekh are expecting their first child next year.

    Last year was the first season since 2010 that Tsonga has gone without winning at least one title. The Le Mans-native claimed three top-10 scalps compared to seven losses against opposition in that bracket throughout the year.

    Armed with a power game that has seen him claim victories over each member of the ‘Big Four’ in the past, Tsonga has struggled against tennis’ current dominant duo – Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic in recent meetings.

    Tsonga is 2-14 against Murray and has lost 13 of his last 14 matches to the Scot, while he’s 6-16 versus Djokovic having lost 14 of their last 15 clashes.

    Is he concerned by his lack of success against them in big matches?

    “I’m focused on me to be honest because it’s really often all about me,” said Tsonga, who in total owns 28 combined victories over members of the ‘Big Four’.

    “When I play good tennis, even if the guy in front of me is playing really good tennis, I have a chance. So the most important thing for me is to be really consistent, play against those guys all the time to get used to it.

    “But I think I have more maturity now and I think if I played them a little bit more I will be able to do something better than what I did in the past.”

    While Tsonga’s year has been a tough one, 2016 in general was good to the French. Gael Monfils returned to the top-10 for the first time since 2011, reached a first major semi-final in eight years and made his maiden appearance at the ATP World Tour Finals. Lucas Pouille also stole the show with his two grand slam quarter-final showings at Wimbledon and the US Open, where he beat Rafael Nadal.

    Monfils’ focus and consistency stood out this year and allowed him to pick up his first title in over two years with a triumph in Washington.

    But Tsonga, a good friend of the flamboyant Frenchman, doesn’t feel Monfils has done much differently to explain his rise to his current ranking of No7.

    “I think he didn’t do something really different than the other seasons, he just won a tournament which made the difference,” said Tsonga.

    “It’s really close between the guys who is ranked No6 and the guy who is 20. You win one or two tournaments and boom, you’re in the top-10. He didn’t change anything because I don’t think he beat so many top-10 players this season.

    “He’s today No7 but he didn’t beat so many guys, so I think he’s just been more consistent when he played matches against guys who he should beat.”

    Monfils claimed just two top-10 wins in 2016 – one of which came against Tsonga on his way to the Monte Carlo Masters final.

    Off court, it’s been a whirlwind year on the tennis circuit starting from the match-fixing allegations that were posed by Buzzfeed and BBC early in the season, followed by Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test and more recently the revelation of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) of several Olympians, including tennis players, by Russian hackers.

    On the match-fixing claims, Tsonga said: “For us it’s really frustrating because it’s like a ghost you know? Everybody is talking about something you never heard about or nobody approached you to do things like this so you just feel like it’s strange. It’s strange for us.”

    The leaked TUEs showed how many athletes were allowed to take banned substances for a wide variety of reasons, some of which are highly questionable.

    “Now I know it’s something that can happen. I just tell myself ‘Jo, just do your thing’. That’s why I think it’s important to think about myself and not about what people say because you never know and the most important is to feel that you have no regrets and you gave everything and that’s it,” said Tsonga.

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