Gaël Monfils has been coming to Wimbledon for 13 years but this is the first time he has made it through to the fourth round. He did it by beating one of last year’s semi-finalists, Sam Querrey, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
There have not been many players in the Open era who have had to wait so long to make it to the second week. Better yet, Monfils said, was that he finished the match just in time to see his French compatriots go 1-0 up in the World Cup.
“My first question when I go off the court was, ‘what’s the score?’ It was 0-0 so I tried to rush,” Monfils said in a press conference he squeezed neatly into half-time. “I was lucky enough to see Raphaël Varane score. So, a perfect day so far.”
Monfils may be ranked 44th in the world but when he’s in the mood he’s a match for anyone. More than a match for Querrey, even after he won the first set, and even though he had to have some treatment from the physio after he stretched a muscle in his groin. “He was serving big at the beginning, so it was tough for me to read,” Monfils said. “I knew I just have to wait a little bit, be patient and I will have opportunities on his serve. That was the key.”
Breaking Querrey’s serve is one of the harder tasks in tennis but in the second, third and fourth sets Monfils made it look easy. He kept baiting Querrey to come in, then passing him. “If Gaël’s locked in, engaged and playing well, he’s tough,” Querrey said. He should know, since he has never beaten him.
Monfils hit a couple of shots that etched themselves into Querrey’s head. “You know, in the third set he hit a running forehand passing shot on the line to break me. And in the first game of the fourth set he hit a little backhand passing shot on the line again. So he hit some good shots to break me in those games.”
Monfils, 31, has always had the talent. It is his temperament that people doubt. Just this week his compatriot Marion Bartoli said she thought he was “childish”, that it seems like he “can’t grow up” and “take charge” of his life. Monfils did not care to get into it. “You know, it’s easy to criticise people when you don’t know them,” he said. “So I won’t even pay any attention about it.”
Querrey was not the only US player knocked out on Friday afternoon. An hour earlier Taylor Fritz was, too. He had been leading the world No 3, Alexander Zverev, 6-4, 5-7, 6-7 overnight but was blown away in an hour’s play when they resumed. Back-to-back double faults seemed to throw Fritz off his service game. Zverev broke him twice and took the fourth set 6-1 in 21 minutes. Fritz never really recovered in the fifth, which he lost 6-2.
Partly, Zverev said, this was because he could see the ball better. “For me, because it’s such a closed court, for me the court is dark at 7.30pm. For me, we played in darkness for one and a half hours. That’s why I couldn’t really see his serve, I couldn’t really break him. For me the most part of the second and third set, for me we played in darkness.”
That was not all that was wrong. Zverev has been suffering with a stomach virus too, and actually threw up right after he lost the second set. “Today in the warm-up I was actually maybe thinking about not playing at all, I was very low energy, because I didn’t eat anything since yesterday.”
Zverev decided the very worst that could happen was that he would have to play one set. It was a good decision, because when he got out there, the adrenaline kicked in. He has made a habit of coming from 1-2 down lately. He did it in three consecutive matches at Roland Garros last month, against Dusan Lajovic, Damir Dzumhur, and Karen Khachanov. He rejected the idea that he was a masochist, but only, he said, because he did not know what the word meant. “I’d rather go five than lose in four, be out of here, book a flight for me to go home tomorrow.”
