Most Tennis players would dream of winning a grand slam in front of a home crowd, however Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has already ruled out his chances of victory at the French open this year as the twenty seven year old struggled to claim a place in the competitions second round after the Frenchman came from a set down to beat Andrey Kuznetsov in which the current world number five rallied to win the remaining three sets only losing six games in the rest of the match-up.

Tsonga’s pessimism has been criticised by French tennis legend Yannick Noah, who was the last French man to win at the Roland Garros Stadium, who believes that you can’t win if you don’t believe you can.  Tsonga may however be considered pretty realistic with his best performance in Paris being a fourth round defeat in 2010, and with Djovokivic and Nadal on top of their games and the tennis world there seems little room for a surprise victory for the French number one. Tsonga certainly has the talent to win a grand slam particularly at Wimbledon or the Australian open where he was a finalist in 2008.

A victory in Paris would make Tsonga the second Frenchman post-war to win the French Open, which would seem odd for a country which has consistently produced high calibre tennis players with such a strong tennis culture which is heavily funded and developed. Only Spain could boast such a successful tennis system, yet the successes of French tennis player have been mixed at best, perhaps suggesting that winners are born and not bought. Either way only time will tell if Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has what it takes to secure a grand slam victory and especially if he can do it in his home country.