Hyderabad: Veteran Gael Monfils, who hails from France, produced an astounding performance to thrash Taylor Fritz from the third round of the Australian Open on Saturday, January 18. Monfils, after losing the first set, collected himself and displayed incredible patience and skills to win the match with a scoreline of 3-6, 7-5, 7-6, 6-4 at the Margaret Court Arena.
With this stunning victory, the 38-year-old became the oldest player to defeat a top-5-seeded player in the Australian Open since the introduction of ATP rankings.
Monfils had a tough start to the campaign, having survived a 5-set thriller against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard before registering a comprehensive victory over Daniel Altmaier in straight sets.
The 38-year-old was put under pressure in the third round by Fritz as the first set didn't go in his favour. Both men started off by matching each other as their service games were on point, with the score being in the favour of the American at 4-3. Monfils committed a few errors while serving and a double fault at the end helped Fritz break him and extend the lead to 5-3. He would then serve out to win the first set.
Both men once again were on top of their game when it came to their service, with Monfils serving up a total of 24 aces throughout the contest.
The third set continued the same trend as the first two as both men dominated while serving and the game went into the tiebreaker. Monfils was able to dominate his opponent during the tiebreaker with some powerful shots and critical errors from Fritz. He raced into a 6-0 lead in the tiebreaker and while Fritz got one back, the Frenchman took the lead in the match.
The third set saw Fritz pick himself up and put in a fight, with both men playing an entertaining Game 4 that went on for 12 minutes. The game-changing moment came in Game 9 when Monfils was able to break the American and then he went on to win the final one while serving to book his place in the 4th round. The Frenchman will face either Ben Shelton or Lorenzo Musetti in the next round
