"I had the lovely surprise of pissing blood," Tsonga reflects on his 2014 Toronto title

In 2014, Tsonga delivered a stellar performance by defeating three members of the Big Four in a single tournament to claim the title at the Canada Masters 1000. Until then, only Nadal had achieved such a feat. Speaking on Kevin Ferreira’s podcast, the Frenchman revisited the physical toll the tournament took on him:

"After that tournament, I had the lovely surprise of pissing blood. It’s not that I felt I’d reached my physical limits, but beating those players back-to-back was incredibly tough because those guys push you to your absolute limits the entire time.

You play against Djokovic—even if you beat him, you’re going to leave pieces of yourself on the court. Same with Federer—forget about it, you’d better be ready. And then there’s Murray, who drags you into a long, grueling battle. It took me a while to recover from that tournament."

For context, the then-29-year-old from Le Mans had taken down world No. 1 Djokovic (6-2, 6-2) in the third round, Andy Murray in the quarterfinals (7-6, 4-6, 6-4), and Federer in the final (7-5, 7-6). He became the first Frenchman to win a Masters 1000 outside France since 1991.