Leave it to Gael Monfils to inject some much-needed life into London

In the first set of his match against Dominic Thiem on Tuesday, Gael Monfils appeared to be on the verge of tanking. He hit floating slices for no reason, rushed the net heedlessly, stopped moving in the middle of points and flexed his knee as if it were bothering him. He lost the set 6-3.

In the second set, Monfils stopped flexing his knee and started playing with relentless focus. He hit aces, drilled his returns with more depth and purpose than normal, dominated the middle of the court and even passed up a chance to hit a tweener in favor of a normal forehand—which went for a winner. Monfils won the set 6-1.

In the third set, Monfils and Thiem played evenly until 4-5, when Monfils double faulted three times in six points and was broken to end the match. In his previous 16 service games, he had double faulted just twice.

For any player other than our favorite flaky, fun-loving Frenchman, this would have been a bizarre and inexplicable display. For Monfils, it was par for the course. On the one hand, he’s a master of subverting our expectations at every turn. On the other hand, that makes him as predictable as anyone else. Maybe more so. Did you, like me, say “Uh, oh” when you saw him double fault to start the last game? This wasn’t the first—or the 50th—time that one double has led to another, and another, from him.

Win or lose, leave it to Monfils to inject some electrifying, perplexing life into a so-far somnolent week in London. This was the 30-year-old’s debut at the World Tour Finals, and before the tournament I had wondered how he would handle the round-robin format and the showcase staging. The last time we saw him in a high-profile match was the U.S. Open semifinals, and we all know how that went. In London, it turned out, Monfils was pretty much the same as he is everywhere else—a little injured, a little nervous, sporadically brilliant, fun to watch and not ready to go all the way.

Now, after losses to Thiem and Milos Raonic, Monfils’ 2016 is probably over; at a minimum, he needs a win over Novak Djokovic on Thursday to have a chance at continuing on to the semifinals. While his season won’t end in a blaze of glory, it was still the best of his 12-year career. As with all things Monfilsian, it was a regret-tinged delight, with moments of deep emotion balanced against moments of high absurdity.

At age 30, Monfils finished in the Top 10 for the first time. He has won 44 matches, the second-most of his career. He made his first trip to the semifinals at the U.S. Open and reached the quarterfinals or better at 10 of 17 events—a remarkably consistent run for such an up-and-down and oft-injured player. Monfils’ improvement helped his new coach, Mikael Tillstrom, finish second in the ATP’s Coach of the Year voting.

Of course, La Monf being La Monf, he also hurt his knee before France’s Davis Cup semifinal after showing off his dunking skills. The team, which had looked so strong at the start of the year, ended up losing to Croatia.

For me, Monfils provided at least two memorably moving moments in 2016. After winning the biggest title of his career, at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., he talked about how seeing Arthur Ashe’s name on the banner of past champions there inspired him to want to put his name there, too. A few weeks after that high, Monfils hit an emotional low at the Rio Olympics, when he lost to Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals after holding match points. That kept Monfils from reaching the medal round, and you could see the stunned disappointment in his wide eyes afterward.

Can Monfils build on 2016 and rise higher next year? I wouldn’t count on it; he’s 2-7 against Top 10 opponents this season. If there’s one shot that could help him get better, it’s his return. Too often, Monfils lets the ball come to him, doesn’t move his feet and ends up either floating or shanking the ball back. His surge against Thiem began when he leaned into his return and drove it deep. That kind of opening shot leads to a more purposeful style of play from him overall.

If Monfils teaches us anything, though, it’s that tennis really is just a game. On Tuesday, after double faulting three times to lose the match, Monfils did what we all knew he would do: He smiled and embraced Thiem at the net. It was a fitting end to his 2016. More than ever before, the joys of watching La Monf outweighed the regrets.