Gaël Monfils is the fortune cookie of this Australian Open. You could hardly be in a better mood than Monfils, whose age (38 years) and world ranking position (41) are currently very close to each other – and why not? Before the Grand Slam tournament he had triumphed in Auckland; He is the oldest men’s tournament winner since Ken Roswell in Hong Kong in 1977. In Melbourne he first won a five-set thriller against compatriot Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and on Thursday he showed a great performance against Daniel Altmaier with pretty much all the elements that make him still one of the most exciting players in the world: sniping stop, dropped backhand, Forehand past the net, ball passed through the legs, soulful praise from the full sprint.
Monfils won 7:5, 6:3, 7:6 (3) and can now look forward to the third round duel with Taylor Fritz (USA) on Saturday in one of the largest arenas on the facility. Afterwards, wife Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) won her game, and in the late afternoon the two were seen frolicking in the catacombs with their daughter Skai, who will celebrate her third birthday in May. For dinner there was borscht, a hearty soup with beetroot – which, as Svitolina revealed, was Monfils’ new favorite dish.
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How could someone like Monfils not be happy? The French colleague says: “He loves life. Life and people love him.”
Monfils is now in the 20th season of his professional career and his bones are aching. After winning the first round, he said: “Tomorrow I’ll probably feel more like I’m 48.” Of course, sport is even more fun when you win. But if one thing is certain about Monfils, it is this: the joy of the game is more important to him than victories; Better to give away a point than the chance of a spectacular shot.
Wawrinka, 39, fails for the third time in a row in round one in Melbourne – and still wants to “push a little more”
This leads directly to another man in his late thirties in Melbourne: The Swiss Stan Wawrinka, who turns 40 in March, was of course not happy about losing the battle against Lorenzo Sonego (Italy) and for the third time in a row in the first round of the Australian Open failed. He was successful here in 2014 and later won in Paris and New York. What is sometimes forgotten Stan the Man: Triumphs at three Grand Slam venues – the legends Pete Sampras, Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker couldn’t achieve more. “I have achieved more than I could have ever dreamed,” he said in Melbourne. Of course, failure hurts, but: “I would like to push a little bit more.” For the love of the game and working on it.
You hear again and again from former stars and today’s gurus that younger players are too quickly satisfied with what they have achieved; that they are not greedy enough for titles and triumphs – and then in Melbourne, warriors show in the late autumn of their respective careers that you don’t need really big successes to be happy. In the fantastic Formula 1 film “Rush”, Niki Lauda calls on his great rival James Hunt to please work harder on himself and push him to a limit that he cannot reach without him. Hunt’s response: “What’s the point of owning a million trophies and medals and airplanes if you’re not having fun?” What is ‘winning’ like?” No one in Melbourne enjoys the game and life more than Gaël Monfils.
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