The Frenchman tried to continue, but ultimately called a halt to the contest, and the Kazakh advanced via a walkover, 6-7, 6-3, 1-0.<\/p>\n
The defeat marks Monfils<\/a>\u2018 fifth straight loss at tour-level events, with the 39-year-old winless since the Wimbledon<\/a> championships.<\/p>\n Amid a poor run of form, he took to social media after his defeat to Shevchenko to send a message to his fans.<\/p>\n In a post on Instagram, Monfils said: \u201cNot the best moment in my career right now, let\u2019s be honest (a lot going on, a lot of questions\u2026 but hey).<\/p>\n \u201cNot the best feelings, not much success, and today a bit of bad luck with this ankle. There are tougher periods, with ups and downs, and that\u2019s also what sport is about: learning, moving forward, and keeping your head up.<\/p>\n But I want you to know that I\u2019m doing well as a person. I feel very fortunate to still be able to live this sport at the highest level, a sport I truly love.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if today the ankle stopped me, I\u2019m extremely grateful to all the people who help and work so hard so I can try to perform at my best.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you to everyone who takes the time to send me positive messages. I read them, I feel them, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you so much for your support.\u201d<\/p>\n Gael Monfils\u2019 record on the ATP Tour this season <\/p>\n Despite being in the twilight of his career, Monfils has managed to tally a winning record on the ATP Tour this year and has added to his title collection. <\/p>\n At the ASB Classic in Auckland earlier this season, the veteran dropped just one set en route to the final, where he overcame Zizou Bergs to hoist the trophy. <\/p>\n Monfils\u2019 best results outside of his triumph in New Zealand have come at the Australian Open and the Miami Open, where he reached the fourth round. <\/p>\n His record on tour in 2025 is 18 wins to 14 losses, and he has collected a total of $1,114,718 in prize money. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gael Monfils\u2019 Asian swing got off to a nightmare start in his first-round match at the Chengdu Open.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[753,64,63,99644,13830,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-154664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-chengdu-open","12":"tag-gael-monfils","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Gael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2236078626-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Zhizhao Wu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n