Player Profile - Gael Monfils

Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 19 February 2007 / Leave a Comment

Gael Monfils caused an early surprise at the Australian Open in Melbourne last month, when he knocked out 2006 runner-up Marcos Baghdatis in the second round.

It wasn't just that he won, it was the manner of the win. The Frenchman took the deciding fourth set 6-0 against the Cypriot ace before going on to lose to his fellow countryman Richard Gasquet in the next round.

Gasquet is the leader of the French pack at world number 16 while, in a strong squad of players. Monfils is only fifth at world number 51, but he's been as high as world number 23 back in June last year and has the qualities to climb right back up the rankings.

A back problem at Queen's Club and then a sprained right ankle and a stress fracture of the left foot checked his rise after being named 2005 ATP Newcomer of the Year.

Now he has the chance to build on the early accolades, when he takes on Australia's 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt on Tuesday in the 34th ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

This is the tournament run by another former Wimbledon winner Richard Krajicek and the Dutchman has assembled another attractive line-up.

Just how far Monfils will go remains to be seen. A win over Hewitt will pit him against the winner of Slovakia's Dominic Hrbaty and Germany's Florian Mayer.

The 6ft 4in right hander from Paris has been a professional since 2004 and has already amassed more than $1m in prize money, even though he only has one tournament win to his name so far. That was in Sopot in Poland in 2005, but he has also been a finalist in Lyon and Metz that year and Doha last year.

His problem at the moment is putting together a string of back-to-back wins to give him the confidence to kick on. Last week in Marseille, for instance, he lost to French rival Marc Gicquel in the first round after taking the first set. Then he dropped a tiebreak 7-1 before losing the decider 7-5.

Apart from his third-round effort in Melbourne, he has only gone beyond the first round in one other event this year - at Doha when he beat Italy's Andreas Seppi before losing to world number 24 Mikhail Youzhny.

At least he is losing to players higher in the rankings, but if he wants to rise back to those high 20s then he will have to start beating some of them - and Hewitt would be a good player to use as his catapult.

They have only met once but that was back in 2004 when Hewitt won on carpet in Paris 6-3 7-6. The man from Adelaide has the experience and the skill - he is world number 20. But Monfils, at five inches taller, has the height and reach to be a handful this time round.

If Monfils manages to upset Hewitt it could trigger a run. He stands 2-2 in head-to-heads with Hrbaty and has won his only previous meeting with Mayer in the final of that Sopot tournament.

To make it all come out right, the 20-year-old Frenchman will need to get that serve in top gear. He has managed to produce 68 aces from 104 service games in matches this year, but his first serve percentage is only 58. That has to improve in order to keep a good returner like Hewitt under pressure.

Monfils is seen as the outsider (2.24) with punters to defeat Hewitt (1.72), while the French ace can be backed at 40 to win the event.