Roland-Garros: Tsonga bows out of professional tennis in tears with four-set loss to Ruud

France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga brought the curtains down on his accomplished career with a four-set loss in the first round of Roland-Garros to eighth seed Casper Ruud, ending the match with an injured shoulder.

After splitting the first two sets on Court Philippe Chatrier, Ruud took the third set 6-2 but Tsonga stayed close through the fourth set.

The Frenchman raised hopes of a deciding fifth set when he broke Ruud to lead 6-5. But when he came out to serve for the fourth set, Tsonga could barely hit his serve at full speed. He hurt his shoulder and even resorted to serving underarm as Ruud broke back to take the set into a tiebreak.

Holding back tears, Tsonga called for the trainer before the tiebreak and after a medical time-out, Tsonga returned to complete the match but was unable to win a point in the tiebreak.

Ruud completed the 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4), 6-2, 7-6 (0) to advance to the second round of Roland-Garros where he will face Finn Emil Ruusuvuori.

Tsonga was felicitated in a glittering ceremony on court after the match where he was joined by his family, former coaches and French team mates.

The Frenchman, who plans to remain involved in tennis with his own academy, also received messages from the Big 4 – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – on the big screen on the court.

French Open (Grand Slam): Wednesday men’s first-round results (Stade Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 43.600.000)

• Lorenzo Sonego (32) beat Peter Gojowczyk: 6-2, 6-2, 6-1
• Andrey Rublev (7) beat Soon Woo Kwon: 6-7 [5], 6-3, 6-2, 6-4
• David Goffin beat Jiri Lehecka: 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4
• Cristian Garin beat Tommy Paul (30): 5-7, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3
• Henri Laaksonen beat Pedro Martinez Portero: 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 [1]
• Richard Gasquet beat Lloyd George Harris: 6-1, 6-3, 6-4
• Alexander Bublik beat Arthur Rinderknech: 6-2, 6-4, 6-4
• Sebastian Korda (27) beat John Millman: 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 [6]
• Alex Molcan beat Federico Coria: 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
• Ilya Ivashka beat Benoit Paire: 6-3, 7-5, 1-6, 7-5
• Laslo Djere beat Ricardas Berankis: 6-4, 6-4, 6-4
• Holger Rune beat Denis Shapovalov (14): 6-3, 6-1, 7-6 [4]
• João Sousa beat Chun-Hsin Tseng (Q): 6-7 [5], 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4
• Emil Ruusuvuori beat Ugo Humbert: 6-2, 2-6, 6-7 [4], 6-4, 6-2
• Daniil Medvedev (2) beat Facundo Bagnis: 6-2, 6-2, 6-2

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