Age irrelevant for Tsonga: Coach

London: French tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga`s coach Roger Rasheed believes that there is a lot more left in his protege despite his rising age.

“I know he`s a 28 years old but I think the age of Jo is very irrelevant purely because he missed three years of tennis, [at] 19, 20, 21. He played five weeks each of those years. I think the number near his name is not really the number as far as tennis schooling goes. So he`s a 24-25 years old in my mind as a schooled tennis player,” Rasheed told the press at the Aegon Championships here Saturday.

Tsonga grabbed the tennis world`s attention when he reached the final of the Australian Open in 2008.

The Australian coach explained that he is focusing more on fine-tuning the World No.7`s shot-making, rather than making any drastic changes to his game.

“He plays very natural with a lot of flair and now we`re just sort of shoring up his weapons. I`m just giving him a little more security in certain areas or just some understanding of a few different ways to go about his business at times," Rasheed said.

Tsonga entered the grass season at the Queen’s Club on the back of reaching his first semi-final at Roland Garros this year where he lost to Spaniard David Ferrer.

“I asked him about that when we first started about how he deals with losses and he`s pretty good. He will reflect on it but he will move on," said the 44-year-old.