Jo-Wilfried Tsonga To Play His First Qualifiers Since 2007

The former World Number five tennis player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga pulled off his first title over the past 15 months in Montpellier during the Open Sud de France, where he overcame his compatriot Pierre-Hugues Herbert in straight sets.

The quarterfinalist at Rotterdam this year, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga decided not to show up for the desert tournament at the Tennis Paradise as he has been suffering from sickle cell disease. The World Number 118, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will now be awarded a wildcard for the second American sunshine event, which is to take place in Miami, Florida. Le Manceau, Tsonga played his last qualifier at the Miami Open in the 2007 and later, the same year he qualified Queen’s Club Championships as 22-year-old. And since then the Frenchman has never played the qualifying round of an ATP event and the Miami Open 2019 will be the first one since the year 2007.

Le Manceau will pick up his racquet for the qualifiers of the Masters 1000 Miami. The 2008 Australian Open finalist, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga decided not to use his protected rank to amalgamate directly into the big board for the Florida Masters.

The last season, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had to tackle with his injuries, also underwent surgery and consequently tumbled drastically over the ATP ladder as he fell to the 210th spot in the world. He missed the Miami Open last year due to his knee surgery. He is making his efforts to return back to the place where he belongs and he needs to favourably perform at the European clay season to retain back his ranking in tennis.

Besides, the Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Reilly Opelka from the US will also be given a wildcard for the qualifier’s draw and the Spaniard, David Ferrer who will be retiring this May will be given a wildcard for etching his name on the main draw for the Florida sunshine event in Miami.

Presently, on the courts of Indian Wells 2019, World Number two, Rafael Nadal has sailed into the quarterfinals of the desert event by surpassing the Croatian, Filip Krajinovic in straight sets. Apart from Nadal, the Croat, Miomir Kecmanovic has booked his quarterfinal berth as the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka retired from the round-of-16.