Gael Monfils reached the semi-finals of the Stockholm tournament, winning two sets to zero (7-5, 7-6 [3]) against the No. 2 seed Adrian Mannarino in Stockholm, late Friday afternoon. He becomes the oldest player in the history of the tournament in the semi-finals (37 years and 1 month) since Ken Rosewall in 1970 and the oldest French player since the creation of the ATP in 1990 to achieve such a performance on a tournament.
“It’s amazing. I know my coach, my wife and even my mother, they will tell you that we will do the same next year, without any worries!” declared the main person concerned when we mentioned this statistic to him.
The Habs will be able to boast of another rather impressive figure: for the 19th consecutive season, “La Monf” will play a semi-final on the main circuit. Only Richard Gasquet, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have done better.
First semi-final since Adelaide last year
Monfils was however a break behind in the first round but he recovered, releasing his punches more and more as the match progressed. He got scared in the second act when he was leading 4-1 but he got his victory in the tie-break thanks to some genius moves. Enough to annoy Mannarino who threw his racket away.
“I got a little lucky at the end. I went to get my shots a little further. I think the match was really close today, but I’m happy to have won in straight sets and I’m happy with my performance,” he said.
Gaël Monfils – UTS Frankfurt © UTS 2023
Monfils, 140th in the ATP world, will face the winner of the match between the Serbian Laslo Djere and the lucky loser Tomas Machac in the semi-finals of the Swedish tournament. This will be his first semi-final since the tournament in Adelaide last year which he won.
Gael Monfils needed three sets to dominate the Hungarian Marton Fucsovics (2-6, 6-2, 7-5), and had dismissed the Austrian qualifier Filip Misolic (6-4, 6-3), before this meeting against in Mannarino, ranked 24th in the ATP, on Friday.
Adrian Mannarino won against Russian Roman Safiullin (6-4, 6-4).
The other posters for the quarter-finals in Stockholm (ATP250, 673,630 EUR, results are displayed from newest to oldest):
Laslo Djere – Tomas Machac : programmé vendredi Miomir Kecmanovic – Elias Ymer (WC) : Kecmanovic qualified (6-0, 3-2 ab.) Pavel Kotov (Q) – Tallon Griekspoor (N.3) : 7-6 [4]6-2
2023-10-20 21:21:43
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