Jo-Wilfried Tsonga sent Great Britain’s Kyle Edmund out in straight sets in the second round of the 2019 Marrakech Open on Wednesday.
Tsonga won 7-6, 6-3 to march into the quarter-finals, where he will now take on the Italian qualifier Lorenzo Sonego. Sonego was a straight-set winner over Robin Haase in his second round clash earlier in the day.
The first set went into the tie-breaker after neither player found a way to break the other. Edmund had a chance to break Tsonga early, in the fifth game, but the Frenchman came back strongly to hold on to his serve. Edmund took it to the tie-breaker after holding serve in the 12th game.
The pendulum swung in favour of Tsonga who had a set-point on his own serve in the tie-breaker but a double-fault brought Edmund back. However, the former world number five won it on his second chance, winning 8-6 in the tie-breaker.
In the second set, Edmund faced break-points in the third game and while he overcame all of them, he was broken soon after in the fifth to go down 3-2. Tsonga held on and broke the Brit one more time on his way to winning the match in straight sets.
Fourth seeded Gilles Simon also moved into the Marrakech Open quarter-final with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Guido Andreozzi in another match. He will take on Taro Daniel in the next round, with the Japanese player having gotten better of Adrián Menéndez Maceiras in three sets.
Alexander Zverev is still to play his second round match and he will be up against Jaume Munar for a place in the last-eight.
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