It would have felt more fitting if Gaël Monfils went out with a roar, with a five-set epic matching the reputation he has built as tennis’s great showman. He may have preferred the kind of bow he made at his home French Open earlier this year, a thrilling five-set fightback that ended well after midnight, or one that had a few more of his dazzling signature shots, like the mid-air forehand that stole the show in his first-round win this week. Instead, the final grand slam match of Monfils’s 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. 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 few for the Frenchman, but he praised the “unbelievable atmosphere” and said he was proud to have given it his all.
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 – the tweeners, the overheads, the movement that swung the momentum of points – attracted just as many fans and as much acclaim as the silverware would have. 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 19-year-old in a baggy yellow tank top who made his US Open debut in 2005 with a grueling five-set loss to Djokovic. It began in last week’s 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 “Happy Birthday”. 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. He saved set point twice, at one point gesturing to the crowd from the corner of the court to urge him on, but his deep forehands skewed long or wide throughout the match.
Tien was content to play long, patient points – he finished with just 20 winners, fewer than Monfils’s 29 – and such a strategy wore out his opponent’s legs. In the sixth game, 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’t, but it couldn’t make up for his 22 unforced errors in the set.
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