It would have felt more fitting if Ga\u00ebl Monfils went out with a roar, with a five-set epic matching the reputation he has built as tennis\u2019s great showman.<\/p>\n
He may have preferred the kind of bow he made at his home French Open earlier this year, a thrilling five-set fightback<\/a> that ended well after midnight, or one that had a few more of his dazzling signature shots, like the mid-air forehand<\/a> that stole the show in his first-round win this week.<\/p>\n Instead, the final grand slam match of Monfils\u2019s 22-year career was a quieter farewell, a straight-sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 second-round US Open defeat to No 14 seed Learner Tien on Thursday night. The 40-year-old has said he will retire after this season, and the result ensured he will finish his career as one of the greatest players to never win a major.<\/p>\n The 20-year-old Tien wore Monfils out, forcing him into long rallies and constant movement along the baseline on a muggy night at Louis Armstrong Stadium. The flashes were fewer than usual for the Frenchman, but he still kept the crowd entertained, praising the \u201cunbelievable atmosphere\u201d and saying he was proud to have given it his all.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always want to give a little bit more, you want to stay a little bit more,\u201d he said. \u201cI gave my absolute all, but Learner was a really tough one tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n Monfils came up in the golden age of the men\u2019s tour, in the era of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. He has won nearly 600 singles matches and collected $25m in earnings, but reached the last four of a grand slam just twice, at Roland Garros in 2008 and here at Flushing Meadows in 2016. And yet his style \u2013 the tweeners, the overheads, the movement that swung the momentum of points \u2013 attracted just as many fans and as much acclaim as the silverware would have.<\/p>\n Ga\u00ebl Monfils shares a laugh with Learner Tien after the Frenchman\u2019s second-round defeat at the US Open on Thursday. Photograph: Eduardo Mu\u00f1oz\/Reuters<\/p>\n Once ranked as high as sixth, he has dropped to No 311 and earned entry to this US Open on a wildcard. He had only played two tour-level events since Roland Garros. But through this run, he has been his trademark showman self, coming full-circle from the 18-year-old in a baggy yellow tank top who made his US Open debut in 2005 with a grueling five-set loss to Djokovic.<\/p>\n It began in last week\u2019s mixed doubles, where he advanced to the semi-finals playing alongside his wife (and world No 9) Elina Svitolina, and continued against 60th-ranked Paraguayan Adolfo Daniel Vallejo in the first round of the main draw. The 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 victory there, on the day he turned 40, made him the oldest man to win a US Open match since Jimmy Connors in 1992, and the Armstrong Stadium crowd serenaded the longtime fan favorite by singing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just me, Ga\u00ebl Monfils,\u201d he said, when asked how he wanted to be remembered. \u201cI think I have been the same since I came on tour, with a lot of joy. \u2026 The most important for me is how my family lived all these year and how they will remind this ride was unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n Thursday night brought a more difficult challenge, against a composed and smart lefty in Tien. Monfils held his own to start, but he was broken in his third service game and began putting his hands on his knees to rest or leaning over to fix his shoe after points.<\/p>\n Tien was content to play long, patient points \u2013 he finished with just 20 winners, fewer than Monfils\u2019s 29 \u2013 and such a strategy tired his opponent\u2019s legs. In the sixth game of the second set, Monfils leaned over a towel box in the corner of the court after a 20-shot rally. A leaping backhanded volley energized the crowd and Monfils himself, but it couldn\u2019t make up for his 22 unforced errors in the set.<\/p>\n Ga\u00ebl Monfils is presented with a gift after his second-round defeat by Learner Tien, having announced he will retire at the end of the season. Photograph: Eduardo Mu\u00f1oz\/Reuters<\/p>\n By the third set, even his serve was a taxing effort. He leaned on his racket in front of the baseline before double-faulting twice in the seventh game, where Tien would find the break that swung the match in his favor. The American played remarkable defense in the eighth game, saving break point after a desperate Monfils had held his finger up to the sky asking for just one break following seven unsuccessful previous efforts. (It did not come.)<\/p>\n Time, though, comes for all. Tien, who is into the third round at the US Open for the first time, said he felt grateful to share the court with Monfils and jokingly apologized for all of his drop shots.<\/p>\n \u201cA couple months ago [in Paris], it was really tough, because you don\u2019t really know what to expect and how you will really react,\u201d Monfils said. \u201cIt was a little bit tougher for me to handle my emotion and play and perform, because I said that I want to say good-bye but be able to perform well. \u2026 It was much better, much easier for me to handle here.\u201d<\/p>\n Tournament organizers presented Monfils with a framed picture in an on-court ceremony. Perhaps he\u2019ll have a new place to hang it soon: ever the master of surprise, he announced in his post-match news conference that his post-tennis life will involve an office job with a Swiss wealth management company.<\/p>\n The ceremony closed with a montage of clips from throughout Monfils\u2019s career on the video board. Few moments from Thursday\u2019s match are likely to end up in future reels, but one captured the night\u2019s scene. In the third game of the second set, up 40-0, he delivered a strong serve and went for a no-look slice on the return. At another time, such a shot could have been a showstopping winner. On this night, it lobbed into the net, and Monfils\u2019s only reaction was to close his eyes and laugh. This is 40, his face seemed to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It would have felt more fitting if Ga\u00ebl Monfils went out with a roar, with a five-set epic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-879360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879360","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=879360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}