Tsonga, Querrey bugged by flying ants

LONDON: Plagued by an invasion of flying ants at Wimbledon, JoWilfried Tsonga admitted the insect attack had got up his nose.

Tsonga was bothered by the annoying bugs throughout his 6-1, 75, 6-2 victory over Simone Bolelli in the second round yesterday.

Several other players were also seen swatting away the ants, but French 12th seed Tsonga had an especially intimate encounter when one flew up his nose and another into his ear.

“That was strange. I had a few experiences in the United States sometimes. With the light at night sometimes you have big bugs. Or in Australia also you have these kind of things,” he said.

“But this was a little bit different, because these ones was very small but a lot. So it was special sometimes, it was in my nose and in my ear.”

Tsonga’s third round opponent is Sam Querrey, who admitted he was close to asking for play to be halted by the ant infestation in his 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win against Nikoloz Basilashvili.

“I brought it up to the umpire. He kind of laughed. The flowers, the bugs, they’re happy. Something like that.” Querrey said.

Japan’s Kei Nishikori also had a close encounter with the bugs on Court One during his 6-4, 6-7 (79), 6-1, 7-6 (8-6) win over Ukrainian qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky.

“There were so many, they were hitting my face all the time. It wasn’t easy but I kept my focus,” said the World No 9. AFP