An email interview with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Thanks to Astro for giving us the opportunity to participate in an email interview with French player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga recently.

Worried about Jo Willy's performance on clay, we came up with several questions regarding his preparation and readiness for the French Open, the Grand Slam he missed last year due to a knee injury.

Here are the questions:

Q1: After missing from Monte Carlo and Barcelona, you started your clay season rather late, in less than a month before Roland Garros. Why did you take so long to switch from hard court to clay?

JWT: The first part of the season was relatively long for me and I needed a good break, hence I took some time off and decided to train instead of playing Monte Carlo.

Q2: You withdrew from Barcelona due to precaution against your knee problem. Is your knee okay now?

JWT: All is well now. I felt something will training and due to my injury from last year and preferred not to take any risks.

Q3: You have an attacking game on hard court. So are you going to play it differently on clay?

JWT: I am not about to change my style of play, rather try to get more spin on the ball but altogether I will try to move forward and attack the ball.

Q4: Is clay the most difficult and your least favorite surface?

JWT: I’ve had good results on clay during my junior years and I enjoy playing on clay to the opposite of what many media can say.

Q5: You have won doubles titles partnering Gasquet and Gicquel before. So are you going to play in the men’s doubles at Roland Garros with one of them?

JWT: As of today, May 12, I do not know with whom I will play double at the French Open.

Q6: Do you think you can beat clay court specialist like Nadal and Djokovic?

JWT: I step on the court with the feeling that I can beat anyone so of course I believe in my chances.

Q7: You are featured in the EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis scheduled to be out in June. Are you excited to be included in this new game? Do you play video games with the other players?

JWT: It is a great honor for me to be featured on the cover of the game and to have my ‘double’ in the game. It was always something that was exciting for me to have my own video game. I used to play a lot with my brother and I look forward to playing against the virtual Tsonga.

As you all know, Richard Gasquet has been suspended after a positive cocaine test result and he will miss the French Open.

For Jo Willy's fans, he will be playing in the ARAG ATP World Team Championship teaming up with fellow compatriots Gilles Simon and Jeremy Chardy next week.

Astro SuperSports+ (channel 816) will be showing the tournament from Monday onwards (May 18) until the final match on May 23.

This additional channel will also air French Open 2009 from May 24 to June 7.

Check out the schedule here or log on to Astro website for more information.

For those who wants to catch these tournaments on live stream, there are always a few trusted sources, TennisTV.com and Atdhe.net.

(Image by Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images)

Rendy Lu Yen-Hsun down with flu, bundled out in Turkey

Fresh from winning the Israel Open last weekend, Rendy Lu Yen-hsun's winning streak was finally ended by Italian Paolo Lorenzi, who won 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 in the first round at the Irzmir Cup in Turkey.

The Asia's no.1 was reportedly caught up with the flu bug.

Here's (a behind-the-scene photo :P) of Rendy waiting for the doctor's report.


(Images by Hamdi of Izmir Cup)

Too happy, too soon?

After listed for just one day in the ATP World Tour calendar, ATP 250 Malaysian Open (tentative name), a USD500k outdoor hard court event has disappeared from the list!

Click image to enlarge

Now first of all, let me show you how I knew that Malaysia was bidding for the ATP event:

January 2009

• LTAM wrote in their website that "an ATP official, together with a foreign organiser, visited the NTC two weeks earlier".
  
• LTAM president Datuk Abdul Razak Latif 'confirmed' to a daily (which is NST) that "Andy Roddick is highly tipped to play in an ATP Tour event in KL come September".
• I wrote an email to LTAM and they confirmed the reports but said they are still in the bidding process.
• The manager of a Top 100 player confirmed there's indeed a TBA (to be announced) event.
• Esther and I speculated that the TBA event should be not very far from Thailand, hence we thought Malaysia had a good chance to win the bid.
  

February 2009

• I wrote to the CEO of ATP Adam Helfant regarding the TBA event and asked about the bidding process.
• Mr Helfant forwarded my email to Brad Drewett, the CEO of ATP International. This is what Brad replied to me: No decision has been made regarding the TBA event in September. I expect a decision to be made sometime in the next three months. I am unable to confirm which cities are candidates for this event due to confidentiality requirements.

May 12, 2009

• I check the ATP calendar and google for any news every single day from May onwards as I believe the results will be out any time soon.
  
• I saw the updated ATP World Tour calendar which listed Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in an ATP 250 event, same week as Thailand Open. Someone informed about the updated calendar in this forum too.

May 13, 2009

• The supposedly ATP 250 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia has been taken off the ATP World Tour calendar.
  

I will not make any speculation now until I dig deep into this event.

Anyone who has information can email to me at hcfoo7@gmail.com.

You read it here first! Malaysia to host ATP 250 event in September 2009

I cannot describe how happy I was when I checked the ATP World Tour calendar this morning.

Click the image to enlarge.

Malaysia, my home country, has won the bid to organize an ATP 250 event which is scheduled to start on September 28, the same week as the Thailand Open!

Earlier this year, Andy Roddick was speculated to play here.

I'll keep you guys posted if I received any latest updates.