A former world junior number one and three-time Grand Slam junior champion, Monfils, by his own admission, perhaps did not fully fulfil his potential in the senior ranks, but he insists his “bucket list is full”.<\/p>\n
Over the course of his 23 seasons in professional tennis, he has won 13 ATP titles, reached at least the last eight at three of the four majors – Wimbledon is the exception – and achieved a career-high ranking of sixth in the world.<\/p>\n
There were 38 wins over top-10 ranked players, including multiple victories over both Federer and Nadal, and two Davis Cup finals with France.<\/p>\n
Such is his longevity, this was his 70th appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam and 19th at the French Open. He holds the record for most Slam match wins by a male French player in the Open era, even if a major title has been elusive.<\/p>\n
But Monfils will be best remembered for his on-court showmanship, athleticism and outrageous shot selection. His near physics-defying slides along the baseline and basketball-like hangtime before smashes have cemented his status as a fan favourite.<\/p>\n
“I was never quite good enough to win a Grand Slam,” reflected Monfils before the French Open. “But maybe I won something more important than that – a tennis career I’m proud of.”<\/p>\n
In a testament to his popularity on and off the court, the farewell festivities began last Thursday with a charity event on Philippe-Chatrier – fittingly named ‘Gael & Friends’ – featuring appearances from stars such as Jannik Sinner, Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, as well as fellow Frenchmen – both retired – Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.<\/p>\n
Gasquet was also in attendance for Monfils’ final bow against Gaston, as were French tennis royalty Mauresmo – the tournament director – and Henri Leconte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former world junior number one and three-time Grand Slam junior champion, Monfils, by his own admission, perhaps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-694736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}