Tsonga latest star to slump at Queen's
LONDON — JoWilfried Tsonga became the latest star to crash out of Queen's Club as the world number 10 was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Luxembourg's Gilles Muller on Wednesday.
After Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and Milos Raonic all endured shock first-round defeats on Tuesday, it was Tsonga's turn to suffer a surprise secondround exit.
Fifth-seeded Tsonga is traditionally a powerful force on grass and finished as Queen's runner-up in 2011, while twice appearing in the Wimbledon semifinals.
But the 32-year-old, who has won titles in Lyon, Marseille and Rotterdam in 2017, was out of sorts from start to finish against the big-serving Muller.
It took Muller just 69 minutes to hand Tsonga another frustrating loss on the heels of his embarrassing first-round exit against Renzo Olivo at the French Open.
"Sometimes you cannot do anything because the guy in front of you is doing the right things to make you play in a bad way," Tsonga said."I played two matches here. That's life. I'll try to play better in Wimbledon. I have to put a little bit more energy in my game."
Muller's impressive display maintained his recent surge, which has seen the 34-year-old win the 's-Hertogenbosch grass-court tournament last week and reach a career-high ranking of 26.
Muller is in the quarterfinals at the Wimbledon warm-up event for a third successive year and will play former Queen's champion Sam Querrey or Australia's Jordan Thompson for a place in the last four.