Gael Monfils reached the fourth round of Wimbledon for the first time with a 5-7 6-4 6-4 6-2 win over Sam Querrey.
The Frenchman, 31, lost the first set and suffered a nasty-looking fall early in the second set. However, after receiving treatment, he looked like a different player.
Monfils breezed through a couple of service games to take the score to 3-3. He then attacked Querrey’s serve in style to break the American to 15.
During that break, the World No.44 produced one particularly remarkable return. Querrey thundered down a typically powerful serve out wide, but Monfils read it and reached it in a flash before whipping it back across court with a forehand to take control of the point.
With confidence now flowing through his veins, the Frenchman eased to two holds to level the match at one set all.
Monfils goes through the gears
Querrey was in trouble early on the second set when he went 15-40 down on his serve. However, he fired down a couple of big serves to save the break points and went on to hold.
But the American had no answer to Monfils’ serve by this stage. The Frenchman lost just seven points on serve in the second set and did not face a single break point.
That meant that all he had to do was break Querrey once. And he did exactly that in game seven when he took advantage of a couple of missed first serves from the World No.13.
While Monfils was impressive in sets two and three, in set four he was sublime. He won 89% of points on his serve, converted two of his three break points and made just one unforced error.
All of this added up to a near-flawless set from the Frenchman as he brushed his American opponent 6-2 aside in just 23 minutes to seal his place in the last 16.
“I slipped a little bit and pulled a little bit my groin,” Monfils said of his fall in his post-match interview. “(But) the physio told me I could go for it.”
