“They didn’t approach me”
Tsonga’s name was bandied about for success Paul-Henri Mathieu. FFT President on Saturday Gilles Moreton declined to comment About the meeting with him in Lyon.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never actually been a candidate, in any case, the federation hasn’t approached me to be a candidate.”
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
He said the confusion stemmed from questions he answered in the media. “Journalists came to me and asked. “Would you like to captain the Davis Cup?” The point is that you can’t say no, you have to say yes,” he explained. “Because in the future it’s a job I might be interested in. But suddenly you become a candidate when you haven’t talked to anyone. You have been offered nothing, no mission.”
“There are always people who are disappointed,” he added. “I am not one of them, because I was not a candidate.”
What he said to Moreton
Tsonga did reveal that he discussed the idea with Moreton when the FFT president visited the Grand Prix Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and his academy in Descines, near Lyon.
“I just mentioned to him that if one day he thinks about me, he should tell me in advance, because I have quite a large professional activity and I also have my family life,” he said. “For a job like this, I don’t think you should take it lightly. It takes time and it has to be a serious project that requires some thought.”
He also suggested that the FFT had learned lessons from the previous appointment process. “I think they made their choice, and unlike last time, I think they told themselves they weren’t going to shortlist 10 and then reject nine, which wasn’t necessarily the best idea,” he said.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, know that everything is clear, everything is perfect,” Tsonga concluded. “Today it is important that we restore our reputation a little bit and that we put the French team and our flag back where we should be on the world tennis stage.”
