A patchy performance from Rafael Nadal sees him leave Doha without the title for the fifth time, while the victorious Gael Monfils moves on to the final after a 6-3, 6-4 conquest.
Monfils’ solitary victory over Nadal came at this tournament in 2009, and he was impressive enough in repeating the feat that the crowd was chanting his name by the end. The first few games were close before an attempted serve-and-volley by Nadal at 2-3 saw him stumble on his way to the net and fluff the put-away. Perhaps unsettled by that, he made an unforced error to hand Monfils his first break point, which the Frenchman converted with a mammoth forehand winner down the line, on the run. At 5-3, Monfils served his way out of a 0-30 hole and took the set with a serve-and-volley play off a soft second serve which was as audacious as it was ill-advised, followed by his fourth ace.
One would have expected Nadal to regroup in the second set, and so the start he made was no surprise. Hitting with more net clearance and coming forward to break up Monfils’ rhythm, he earned his first break point at 0-1 with a clever mix of backhand slices and powerful cross-court forehands, and converted to lead 2-0. Up 4-2, with Monfils beginning to yell with frustration at some of his errors, Nadal unexpectedly lost timing on the ball and the Frenchman broke back with another huge forehand. Nadal was on the point of breaking back immediately when his return, which looked out, was not called. Monfils was clearly considering challenging, but instead hit a soft, mid-court ball back, surprising Nadal into an error. The world No. 2 never recovered his composure and was broken to love in the next game, as Monfils unloaded on a cross-court backhand, then sneaked into the net to put away a delicate drop volley.
It’s a truism that one never knows what to expect from Monfils. Serving for the match, he hit his first double fault of the day, then played utterly passively on both his match points, allowing Nadal to hit perhaps his best winner of the match on the second. Monfils fruitlessly challenged, and when Hawkeye showed the ball to be well in, indulged himself in a long laugh at his own bad judgement. He was still laughing as he prepared to serve, only to play a stunning 25-stroke point which ended with a winner off a chased-down volley of Nadal’s. One more tame error from Nadal and it was all over.
It was an invigorating and impressive performance from Monfils, particularly in his ability to regather himself mentally after going down a break in the second set, and a slightly puzzling one from Nadal in its passivity. A particular point of concern is the way that Monfils used his backhand to stretch Nadal out wide on the forehand side and gain control of the point, a tactic that Djokovic used with great success last year and is perhaps now entering the ATP playbook against the world No. 2. Monfils moves on to face compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final.
—Hannah Wilks