Gaël Monfils topples Cameron Norrie, fights through injury scare in Cincinnati opener

CINCINNATI, Ohio—The show goes on for the resurgent Gael Monfils, who pulled off an early upset over No. 13 seed Cameron Norrie, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of Western & Southern Open.

Like in most Monfils matches, there was enough drama to fill up a three act play. The Frenchman came out swinging, looking confident after last week’s quarterfinal run in Toronto that included another stunner over world No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas.

And then came the complication: Midway through the opening set, Monfils seemed to tweak his left knee as he hit a drop shot, causing him to pull up in pain and begin to limp heavily.

As he sat in the chair with his head buried in his hands, in clear distress, it seemed like Cincy fans would be in for a disappointing, but increasingly familiar end to the match. Monfils has already retired twice from matches this year due to injury, and had to withdraw from Roland Garros due to wrist pain. But on Tuesday afternoon, there was still time for a twist.

“The physio, when he stepped on the court, was a big help, to be honest. He told me the ligament was well, okay, seemed stable. He was more making me calm in that way, [that it] was maybe not too bad.

“Then obviously you need to block this out of the mind and stay focused. I felt good these weeks… I believed that I could win even with this pain, and I made it.”

With his knee taped up and his worst fears assuaged, Monfils eventually returned to the court. He dropped the opening set, but by the second was running comfortably and by the third, was taking it to Norrie shot for shot and attacking returns. He broke serve four more times en route to a climactic victory—his second Top 20 win of the year.

But every great performer knows that it’s different when the curtain comes down. Sitting in a press conference room an hour later, the game’s greatest showman cut a pensive figure as he debriefed with journalists after the match. He admitted that his left knee was still bothering him, and reflected on his years long battle to stay fit and play a consistent schedule.

“It's quite tough to talk about it in a way because it's tough to be in the shoes of an athlete,” he said. “People, they see always the good stuff, always smiling, always the show, always the charisma, the wins, the followers, the nice pictures and all this. They are never there when it's raining, your coach is there screaming at you, that you need to work, all this.

“They think we are robots. Like, Wow, we wake up and we are super happy to go run for an hour and do the fitness.

“Some days is tougher, as for everybody. That's part where we are better as athletes because we have this discipline.”

For now, Monfils says he’s not focusing on ranking milestones, and that’s probably for the best. This time last year, he was 22 in the world after peaking at No. 16. On Tuesday in Cincinnati, he marked his return to the Top 200 in the ATP live rankings, his best ranking since January.

At this stage of his life—aged 36 years, with 10-month old Skai, his daughter with wife and fellow tennis player Elina Svitolina, waiting at home—and with the end of his career approaching, he says he’s measuring success by how many matches he can play in a row and by how long he can stay healthy. He entered Cincinnati with a 6-7 record on the season.

“People sometimes think it's easy to come back. They see me move easy. They see me quite chill and laughing and doing that,” he said.

“As I say, no one knows all the pain that I need to impose on my body to get back into shape. All the mental discipline. More it’s tough to get back."

Cincinnati will indeed get an encore of the Monfils spectacle, as he awaits the winner of Alex de Minaur, last week’s finalist in Toronto, and JJ Wolf, a Cincinnati local. But as questions continue to linger around his match fitness and his ability—or even willingness—to continue fighting through painful injuries and setbacks, it’s unclear how long the show can go on.