THERE are always points of inspiration for every successful sportsman, but few can have been stung into action like Jo-Wilfred Tsonga.
The French tennis star, whose build suggests he should really be playing rugby for Toulouse or Paris in the second row, came through from two sets down against the awesome Roger Federer to make it into today’s Wimbledon semi-finals.
But the little fellow who gave him his kick start was just someone who was hanging around in a yellow and black hooped shirt.
No, it has nothing to do with Scottish football clubs Alloa Athletic, Berwick Rangers or Dumbarton – what we are dealing with here is a wasp.
Tsonga needed treatment after his unfortunate meeting, but then went on to win in stunning style.
I will admit right now that my two worst subjects at school were chemistry and biology, so I cannot be sure of my facts. But I would have thought wasp venom veered more to the performance-reducing rather than performance-enhancing side of the scale.
But what do I know? Some sportsmen have been banned for taking so-called recreational drugs, which to my way of thinking would have rendered them almost useless in competition and possibly even incapable of finding the venue, let alone giving them a better chance of winning.
However, Jo-Wilfred’s stripy pal came up trumps and one can only wonder if Tsonga is even now checking out all the bins near ice cream vans around Wimbledon to see if he can find his inspirational new best friend.
While I don’t want to appear any more of a Duke of Edinburgh-style dinosaur that at least one reader of this column has me marked down as, the problem with wasps is that you really can’t tell them apart.
So today expect to see Tsonga going back to his seat at game breaks and rather than producing a bottle of barley water or a banana, bringing out one of those jars of jam with the hole cut in the top and then flailing about with a rolled-up Standard (though I might send him a courtesy copy of the Examiner) to enrage the small stripy ones into inspiring him to victory.
