Rope a dope, puppet on a string: Monfils dismantles Fritz to reach fourth round in Melbourne
The Frenchman claimed his best ever win by ranking at a major with a tactically brilliant display
Julien Nouet / TennisMajors
Had Muhammad Ali watched Gael Monfils in action at the Australian Open on Saturday, he would have tipped his cap, recognising a kindred spirit.
Just like the boxing champion did so famously when he beat George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974, Monfils used all his tactical nous to beat No 4 seed Taylor Fritz 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1), 6-4 and reach the last 16 for the fifth time, his dance at the end already going viral on social media.
Watching Monfils it was like watching a puppet master, pulling his subjects around on a string. Fritz, the world No 4, who reached his first Grand Slam final at the US Open in September, was tearing his hair out, unable to cope with the slow-balling from the other side, mixed with massive serving and sudden injections of pace in his groundstrokes.
“As I always say, I keep playing for those matches,” he said. “Play big player, big stadium, good crowd, good energy. When you’re 38 years old, is what I want. I had it. I was very fortunate to win it. It’s exactly why I’m playing.”
Fritz unable to create his own pace
No one covers the baseline like Monfils, even at 38. Gliding around like it was a Sunday social, Monfils soaked up Fritz’s power, offering him nothing, asking him to create his own pace, the hardest task in tennis.
The American looked in charge after the first set but from the moment Monfils broke to win the second, he was in charge, pulling Fritz around the court and even when he was defending, able to suddenly come up with something miraculous. When he was in trouble, on serve, which wasn’t often, he produced big serves to save himself, saving three of the four break points he faced.
Time and time again, Fritz looked disbelieving at what was coming from the other side, while the frustration of not being able to hit through Monfils, or at seeing another big second serve fly past him, was plain to see.
“It’s just a really good match from him,” a generous Fritz said. ” I couldn’t hurt him enough with my groundies to follow it into net. I felt like I wasn’t getting him out of position at all. Just going full blast trying to attack him, it seemed almost too easy for him to hurt me for how much I was struggling to hurt him.”
SECOND win over a top-five player at a major
Amazingly, it’s only Monfils’ second win over a top 5 player in a slam, his eighth win over a top 10 player in a major, but his first for 10 years, while it’s also his best-ever win at a major in terms of ranking. When he said at the end of 2024 that this would be a crucial year for him, most people assumed it meant he was talking about retirement. Maybe he was, but he was also talking about stepping up another level. Victory in Auckland the weekend before the Australian Open set him up nicely and the way he played against Fritz suggests anything is possible, even at 38.
“My game plan was a bit different,” Monfils said. “I knew how to slow down, how to change rhythm a little bit. Unfortunately for him, I felt actually great today with my movements, so I could hold this for long time.”
The stats were also mightily impressive. He served at 61 percent overall, though he was over 70 percent for long periods; he won 82 percent of points when he landed his first serve and a superb 68 percent when he needed his second serve. Monfils hit 24 aces, 58 winners and made just 34 unforced errors. His drop shot was superb and he won 11 of 15 at the net.
Monfils will play either Ben Shelton or Lorenzo Musetti in the fourth round and on this evidence, he will firmly believe he can make it to the quarter-finals. Could he win the whole thing? He says no.
“To be honest with you, is not even a dream to win the tournament,” he said. “My dream is to be old and with a lot of kids and healthy. My dream is to have an unbelievable family. Tennis is cool. Of course, you want to have goal, dream, whatever. But my dream is out there.”
