Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s unexpected early round loss to Renzo Olivo
By Gale Moorman
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga sees a shocking early round upset at the 2017 French Open. He drops his match to Renzo Olivo of Argentina.
Wins come and wins go and then there are the upsets. For Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, this was a major blunder at a major.
Renzo Olivo, ranked No. 91, is an Argentinian who really concentrated on the Futures and Challenger circuits and was quite comfortable on that. He wanted to elevate himself as any player would and attended the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy from 2004-2008.
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After ending his training at the Academy he decided it was time for him to go pro and did just that on the ATP circuit in 2009. He entered many tournaments accumulating nine Futures and two Challenger titles.
He was glad to have gotten to the 2nd round of the Australian Open last year and the quarters in Wimbledon in 2013 and 2015. He also made it to the US Open in 2013 and 2015. It was in 2014 that he defeated Tommy Robredo at Bastad and just last year, he defeated Fernando Verdasco ranked No. 37, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 to win at the ATP Challenger Quito in Ecuador.
It seems like it’s Olivo’s mantra to win against top players and his road to a higher ranking just seems a premise that has been one in the making.
Last year he won the Brazil Open in Argentina and this year he started his losing streaks unfoundedly. He had no reason or remedy as to how he wasn’t able to win past the opening rounds of nine tournaments and felt rather helpless. He helped his Davis Cup team last year win and he was proud of that but fixing losing streaks was a difficult task.
Then came this year’s Roland Garros. Olivo’s first opponent was the 11th ranked hometown guy Jo-Wildred Tsonga. He knew he was up for a challenging match that most likely he might know the outcome before he even played, but he tried to enter the match optimistically.
The opening round for Olivo and Tsonga started on Tuesday, but it was suspended not because of rain, but because it was getting too dark to continue to play. They had played the first set which was Olivo’s at 7-5. He even captured the 2nd set 6-4. Things were beginning to look a bit ‘dodgy’ for Tsonga, a hometown guy and first time daddy. But Jo-Willy knew he had to do something and fast. He had dropped his unforced errors, started being more aggressive and dictating many of the plays rather than just returning the ball.