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Tsonga joins exodus of seeds at Queen’s

By Agencies - Jun 22,2017 - Last updated at Jun 22,2017

France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga looks dejected after losing his second round match against Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller at the Aegon Championships at the Queen’s Club, London, on Wednesday (Reuters photo by Tony O’Brien)

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga joined the exodus of the seeds at the Aegon Championships after being outplayed by Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller at a boiling hot Queen’s Club on Wednesday.

The Frenchman, seeded five, had no answer to left-hander Muller’s swinging serve as he bowed out 6-4 6-4.

Top seed and five-times champion Andy Murray, French Open runner-up Stan Wawrinka and 2016 Wimbledon runner-up Milos Raonic all suffered surprise defeats on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old Muller won the grasscourt title in Den Bosch on Sunday and has continued that form on the London lawns.

With on-court temperatures nudging 40oC on Wednesday, Tsonga looked as listless as the sweltering crowd as Muller dominated behind his serve to claim his second title of the year, having never won one before.

He needed one break of serve in each set to subdue former runner-up Tsonga and will move on to face either Murray’s conqueror Jordan Thompson of Australia or American Sam Querrey in the quarter-finals.

American Donald Young also progressed, beating Serbia’s Viktor Troicki in straight sets. 

Murray crashed to one of the worst defeats of his glittering career on Tuesday as Australian World No. 90 Thompson ended his reign as Queen’s champion with an astonishing 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 first round victory.

Making the 30-year-old’s humiliation even worse, Thompson, originally beaten in the qualifying rounds, was only playing as a last minute replacement for the injured Aljaz Bedene.

It was the worst possible preparation for Wimbledon, with the grass-court Grand Slam set to get under way on July 3.

Having reached the French Open semifinals earlier this month, Murray must have hoped he was back on track after his poor run during an injury-plagued first half of the season.

But instead the three-time Grand Slam winner plans to go back to the practice courts with coach Ivan Lendl in a last-ditch bid to find a solution to his struggles.

“I said before the tournament there was still a lot of work to be done, and after the French Open I knew that I was still quite far from where I needed to be,” Murray said.

“One tournament doesn’t change all of what had gone on just beforehand. So that’s why I got back on the practice court quite soon after the French.

“But I was certainly feeling better in the build-up here than I was going into the French. I would have expected to have played and done a bit better.”

Murray has now failed to get past the second round in three of his last four tournaments. and has lost before the quarter-finals six times this year.

It is a remarkable crisis for a player who just eight months ago was sitting on top of the world after a golden year that including titles at Wimbledon, the Olympics and the ATP Tour Finals.

 

Confidence factor

 

Murray looks bereft of form and focus at present and he conceded a lack of confidence was a factor.

“I don’t feel like loads of my game has changed, but obviously right now I’m not playing as well as I was 12 months ago,” he said.

“Most of that comes down to confidence in matches. It’s not so much that I have changed my serve or my technique.

 

“It’s just when you’re playing a lot of matches and winning consistently helps you make better decisions at important moments.

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