Lyon: Simon no better than Tsonga

Also a future retiree, Gilles Simon left the Lyon tournament in the first round, after his 6-1, 6-4 defeat against Karen Khachanov, seeded n ° 5.

Gilles Simon was playing his tenth match at the Lyon tournament on Monday. And it will also be the last. The 37-year-old French tennis player, who recently announced that he would retire at the end of this season, was eliminated as soon as he entered the main draw, having won his two qualifying matches this weekend . Fallen to 159th place in the world, “Gillou” had a hard time facing the 24th and seeded No. 5, Karen Khachanov. And unsurprisingly, the Russian won for the third time in four confrontations against the French: 6-1, 6-4 in 1h32.

Gilles Simon had a very complicated start to the match and found himself trailing 5-0 having scored only one point on the opposing serve, while Khachanov scored two breaks on two occasions. The French finally managed to win a game, not without difficulty (5-1 after saving two set points), and the Lyon public gave him a standing ovation. But the Russian did not tremble to conclude on the next game.

A 17th Roland-Garros awaits Simon

In the second set, Simon lost his serve at 1-1 and had only one chance to unbreak, when the former Bercy winner was serving for the match. The French missed this ball, and it is therefore Karen Khachanov who will see the round of 16, against the Slovak Molcan, the scorer of Tsonga.

Gilles Simon will now be able to take the direction of the capital, where a 17th Roland-Garros awaits him in the main draw (it only missed one edition, in 2010). And like his friend “Jo”, there is no doubt that the organization and the public will reserve a fine tribute for the penultimate Grand Slam tournament in the career of the man who was world No. 6 (in January 2009) and won 14 tournaments, the last in Metz in 2018.

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