Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s French Open hopes are gone, the 12th seed sent packing on Wednesday with a four-set defeat to Argentine Renzo Olivo.
Tsonga, who had just won the Lyon Open on clay, lost 7-5 6-4 6-7 (6-8) 6-4, having saved three match points after darkness on Tuesday stopped the first-round match.
“We were back to the hotel around 1:00am. I had a massage – it was not easy to sleep. I knew the first point today was important,” said world No.91 Olivo, who trained in France from 2012-16.
Olivo served for the match on Wednesday but a burly Tsonga had broken back to keep his hopes alive.
“I just tried to play every point as it was the last,” said Olivo, who handed Tsonga his second first-round defeat at Roland Garros.
No Frenchman has won their national since 1983, let alone a grand slam title.
Young Austrian hope Dominic Thiem came through a testing workout against Simone Bolelli at Roland Garros, dropping the first three games before overcoming the Italian qualifier 7-5 6-1 6-3.
Facing a player competing in his first tour-level event since undergoing knee surgery last June and languishing at 470 in the rankings, the sixth seed came off second best in the early baseline exchanges.
Taking the ball early, Bolelli hurried Thiem into mistiming his trademark booming groundstrokes as the Austrian – an outside bet for the title and the only player to have beaten Rafael Nadal on clay this year – sent a succession of crosscourt backhands wide.
The Italian saved three break points in the ninth game before surrendering his serve two games later. That left Thiem, who recorded his best grand-slam showing in reaching last year’s semi-final, to serve out the first set.
“The first set was very close, and it was one key of the match today that I won it,” the 23-year-old Austrian said courtside.
The Italian faded in the second set, when he had a medical timeout for work on muscles around his rebuilt knee, and Thiem finished off the match in just under two-and-a-half hours with an ace to progress to the third round.
Belgian 10th seed David Goffin joined Thiem in the last 32, beating Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 6-2 6-4 3-6 6-3.
