Gaël Monfils can harbor regrets. The 20th player in the world was eliminated in the 3rd round, beaten 7-6 (7/1), 6-2, 4-6, 4-6, 6-4 by the Italian Jannik Sinner (16th), Saturday in New York . With this defeat, there are no more French competitors in the US Open.
On the Louis Armstrong court, the Parisian first missed his meeting, before getting back into the match by showing great self-sacrifice. But in the end he made too many mistakes to hope for a better fate. After three sets, it was 51 unforced errors, for 77 committed in total. As a symbol, the last, on a forehand attack, offered the victory to his opponent, who was relieved by the outcome of this scenario which had become uncertain.
A very difficult end of the first set
In the first set, Monfils nevertheless broke to lead 6-5. Excellent in the first ball so far (21 aces in total), he then committed the first of his ten double faults, then sent three more balls out of the lines in the rally. This allowed Sinner to get the tie-break, during which the Frenchman continued to redact.
Annoyed, he seemed resigned in the second set, but ended up rebelling in the third. Led 4-3, Monfils released some superb winning shots (61 in total) and he has made three games in a row. His New York fans could finally rejoice, them who had until then been entitled to a little kid jump on the fly to put on the show.
A superb comeback in the 4th set
He did even better in the fourth set, again started full blast by his young rival of 20 years who escaped 4-0, since he lined up six games in a row. The Louis Armstrong then looked like a “big band” and the French, after having equalized, to spread his long arms to show that he was still there. But, once again, it was Sinner who broke first in the fifth round. And this time he was able to keep his lead until the end of 3 hours 42 of play. The Monfils roller coaster thus stopped at the bottom and not at the top. The Italian, finalist of the Masters 1000 in Miami in the spring, will face the German Alexander Zverev (4th) or the American Jack Sock on Monday.