Gaël Monfils

Gaël Sébastien Monfils (French pronunciation: ​[ɡaɛl mɔ̃ˈfis]; born 1 September 1986) is a French professional tennis player. Monfils is a former French No. 1, reaching a career-high singles ranking of World No. 7 and winning 5 singles titles. He was the runner-up at the Paris Masters in 2009 and 2010 and a semifinalist at the 2008 French Open.

Tennis career

Juniors

As a junior Monfils compiled a singles win/loss record of 83–22, reaching the No. 1 junior combined world ranking in February 2004. In 2004 he won the Boys' Singles titles at the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. He was crowned International Tennis Federation youth world champion.

2002

In 2002, Monfils finished 24th at the Dutch Junior Open. In the same year, he won the German Junior Open (defeating Bayer). Monfils ended the year ranked the no. 4 junior in the world. He also represented France in the junior Davis Cup.

2003

Monfils got off to a positive start in 2003 and earned his first career ATP point at the France Futures No. 13 by reaching the second round. He also reached the second round at France No. 14, Egypt No. 2, and Spain No. 28. In that year, he played a total of nine Futures events. This included a showing in the doubles final at Spain No. 27. In junior events, he was a semifinalist at Orange Bowl (losing to Marcos Baghdatis) and USTA International Winter Championships (losing to Sebastian Rieschick). He reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open juniors tournament (losing to Florin Mergea) and won the doubles title at the Victorian Junior Championships (with Josselin Ouanna). He was No. 21 in junior rankings at the end of the year.