Monfils set to skip Australian Open in order to use protected ranking going forward on return to the court

Gael Monfils will skip all tennis in Australia this year to become eligible to use the protected ranking option moving forward.

Monfils injured his foot while playing in Canada and he's not been active since then attempting a comeback multiple times. He talked about the injuries he suffered lately admitting that he's going to skip over the Australian Open to be able to use the protected ranking.

He was ranked 20th when he injured himself but it dropped to 54 as of now and could potentially drop even lower in the first few weeks of the season. He could find himself ranked outside of the top 100 and a protected ranking would be very useful to him in a situation like that:

“I think that you know, there is the protected ranking, when you don’t play for a certain amount of months. I know that if I take it, I have to not play the Australian Open to reach the six months needed and that will be my decision."

The target for him is to be ranked high enough to ensure he plays at the 2024 Paris Olympics:

“2023 is an important year for me, a year of transition, transition between my injuries and the fact to be competitive to try to qualify for Paris 2024. I would not like to miss them (Olympics), it would be my last ones. I hope that 2024 would not be my last year but maybe the one after that. Before, I said that I wanted to play until I’m 40 but the more time I spend with my daughter, the more I’m thinking that maybe I’ll play a bit less."