WHAT HAPPENED: On the day before his 35th birthday, Gael Monfils adopted an aggressive mindset from the opening ball and overpowered the No. 61 clay-court specialist Federico Coria of Argentina, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, to roll into the second round at the 2021 US Open.
It’s a given that Monfils will be entertaining to watch. It’s less predictable how the Frenchman will approach a match. Monfils can, despite his prodigious athletic gifts, occasionally be passive, content to rally and rely on his defensive skills. On Tuesday afternoon, Monfils came out swinging, striking heavy, offensive groundstrokes from deep in the court and showing off his patented acrobatics at net.
The No. 17 seed avoided getting into protracted exchanges with Coria, who likes the rhythm of long rallies. In the first set, Monfils broke in the eighth game for a 5-3 lead. Serving for the set, Monfils leaped in the air to smack a swinging forehand volley winner, setting up set point. He then held at love with a look-away drop-shot winner — a theatrical proposition that would be a practice-only trick shot for anyone other than Monfils.
In the second set, Monfils repeatedly rifled forehands from well behind the baseline and snuffed out a momentary early change of momentum that saw three consecutive service breaks.
Monfils broke serve for the fifth time early in the final set to remain in command, and he sprinted to the finish line to begin his birthday celebration a day early.
For the match, Monfils won an astounding 93 percent of his first-serve points and 92 percent of points at net.
WHAT IT MEANS: The veteran French showman and 2016 US Open semifinalist has had mostly middling results for much of 2021, losing in the early rounds of the majors. But Monfils has shown sparks of his former Top 10 self since marrying fellow pro (and US Open No. 5 seed) Elina Svitolina in July. The newlywed Frenchman made the quarterfinals of the ATP Masters 1000 in Toronto, losing narrowly to John Isner, and he lost to eventual finalist Andrey Rublev in two tiebreaks in the Round of 16 at Cincinnati.
Monfils finds himself, as the No. 17 seed, in a fairly favorable quarter of the draw. His most likely opponents down the road are Jannik Sinner, Pablo Carreno Busta, and Denis Shapovalov — all winnable matches for the talented Frenchman if he continues to play up to his capabilities.
MATCH POINT: Coria, the younger brother of the former tennis pro Guillermo Coria (who reached the French Open final and rose to No. 3 in the world in 2004), hails from Rosario, Argentina. Rosario is perhaps best known in the sporting world for being the birthplace of Lionel Messi, the famed fútbol player who recently left FC Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain.
