Time for serious things for Gaël Monfils. After showing a fairly good face against Steve Johnson, 87th in the world, in the previous round (7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4), Gaël Monfils had to deal with the Italian prodigy (16th in the world), this Saturday. A clash of generations, scheduled in third rotation on the Louis Armstrong. The “Monf '” who celebrated her 35th birthday on Thursday, finally finds color after months of wandering the courts. Forgotten (finally) the ghost that haunted the circuit during the first ten months of the resumption of the post-Covid circuit, between September 2020 and July 2021. Reinvigorated this summer with the return of the public on the short side and a wedding on the heart side, the Parisian finds, as if by magic, a level of play a little more in line with its ranking (20th worldwide), still very flattering in view of its poor performance since theappearance of the cursed pandemic.
To discover
US Open: men's calendar
US Open: ladies calendar
Monfils invigorated
With the public, Monfils transcends itself.
He will once again need to feed on the energy of the spectators who will undoubtedly be won over to his cause for his first 3rd round of a Grand Slam since the Australian Open 2020. And, then, in New York, he often shone.
He was semi-finalist in 2016 and three times quarter-finalist in 2010, 2014, 2019. It was on the Louis-Armstrong court, two years ago, that he had won a sacred shock of generations against the youngster. pushes Denis Shapovalov in 16th already.
Will history repeat itself this Saturday against the one that has been presented for quite some time as a potential future world number one?
ALSO READ - US Open: Monfils, the right man
Sinner, the precocious
The former skier aligns at 20 years (he has them since August 16) the records of precocity.
The first player born in the 21st century to win a tournament on the main circuit (Sofia 2020), the finalist in the Miami Masters 1000, he was in 2020 the youngest to reach the quarterfinals at Roland Garros since Novak Djokovic in 2006 and the first to rally them for his first participation since a certain Rafael Nadal.
One of the most beautiful transalpine nuggets, coached by Riccardo Piatti, went in two years from 200th place in the world, top 15. At 19, he had become after his coronation in Washington at the beginning of August, the youngest winner of a ATP 500 tournament since the category was created in 2009, snatching the record for precocity from Alexander Zverev, 20, when he won in Washington in 2017.
READ ALSO - US Open: the prodigy Carlos Alcaraz terrace Tsitsipas at the end of the suspense
Sinner, on AC this summer
Since his success in Washington, the transalpine giant, all-round player par excellence, has then chained two initial defeats during his American tour. Sinner, who had not yet won any match at the US Open before, was also a little scared against the American guest Zachary Svajda, to whom he dropped the third set after having had two balls. match, ultimately winning 6-3, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4. He showed some weaknesses in the baseline with a lot of waste (58 unforced errors). This Sinner, seems clearly within the reach of the veteran tricolor ... If the two men have never met in Grand Slam, they have already crossed swords twice on the circuit. They are at 1-1. The two meetings took place indoors in Vienna and Antwerp, in 2019.If successful over Jannik Sinner, it would possibly be a huge challenge against Alexander Zverev who would await the leader of French tennis. Yet another story.
