Quotes from Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

I have been working on my backhand since I was the age of five. And it's a disaster, my backhand, so I'm working on it.

Everybody's expecting a lot from me.

Facing a great server makes a match so much more difficult, even for the best players in the world.

My parents always taught me not to be a good tennis player or the best in what I'm doing, but to be polite.

Well, I like characters, players with personality, I don't like flat people.

Yes, there are moments when it's frustrating where you can't put the ball where you want it and you make mistakes.

I think the best match I played was against Roger Federer in the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 2011, especially because I won this match after being two sets down.

It's important to stay normal and live in the real world. I know this is where you find happiness.

It's quite a good feeling when you win against 10,000 people.

I enjoy playing on grass and I enjoy being in London.

Whether at the Olympic Games or during a Davis Cup tie I am extremely proud and honored to represent my country.

I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it's nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It's really painful to receive something like that because you're not ready for that. You think to yourself, 'That's really bad.' But I realise that there are people like that.

It's something powerful to receive all this love. In the street. In Congo, everywhere. But it's also hellish at the same time. When all that comes at you from one day to the next, it's really destabilizing.

When I fly, it takes me two, three days to recovery, to be good physically.

Well, we're working hard all the time. We have ambitions.

I have been regularly confronted with racism, very regularly, and since my earliest childhood.

I like to be in Le Mans during the summer, of course because I have my family over there but also because the nature is just beautiful at this time and it's in the country. There is a relaxing spirit in this place.

When you travel like we do, a holiday is simply being able to sleep in your own bed.

You can't really hit on grass. There are lots of bad bounces, so when the guy plays deep into the spot where the grass has been worn down and he doesn't leave you the time to play, you don't have time to play fast yourself.

I was one of the only children having an immigrant father in my elementary school.

People have a different impression sometimes because of the way I'm on court, but outside, I'm nothing like that.

I've gotten tougher.

As I always say each time I start a tournament, I want to go as deep as I can.

When I come to London, it is always quite relaxing for me in a way, not just because it is one of my favourite cities but because it comes immediately after the French Open, which for me is a very significant tournament with lots of pressure.