Why the 2020 season could have been the best in Monfils' career

Gael Monfils had a stunning start to the 2020 season when he lost only 3 matches out of the 19 he played, however, the Tour suspension ended his great run.

So far, the best Monfils' season was back in 2016. He reached the quarterfinal at the Australian Open and then went to the semifinals at the US Open. He also reached his career-high in the ATP Ranking back then when he climbed to the 6th position.

Monfils started his 2020 season at the ATP Cup where he played 2 matches. In the first match, he defeated Christian Garin, but then he lost to Novak Djokovic. At the Australian Open, Gael reached the 4th round where he lost to the runner-up, Dominic Thiem.

Since that moment, the Frenchman was almost undefeatable. He first dominated at the Open Sud de France in Montpellier where he defeated Vasek Pospisil to win the title. Then, Monfils moved to Rotterdam to win the second title in a row after defeating Felix Auger-Aliassime in the final.

In Dubai, Monfils had a streak of 24 won sets in a row. Then, he faced world number 1, Novak Djokovic. Monfils continued to play against Djokovic in a similar style as he did during whole season. He managed to win the first set 6-2 and led in the second already 3-1. The set reached the tie-break and Monfils had also 3 match points there, however, he didn't manage to convert any. Djokovic went on to win the match later and broke Monfils' winning streak.

However, Monfils was the 3rd most successful man of the 2020 season so far when he earned a total of 1145 points. There were only 2 men better than the Frenchman in the 2020 season, Djokovic and Thiem. Also, they were the only men who outplayed Gael in the 2020 season.

After losing to Djokovic in Dubai, Monfils wrote a caption on his Instagram profile saying: "I can t beat u my friend Novak, but always a big pleasure to play against you. You are a big champion in many ways and u showed it again tonight. I would like to thank everybody for the support in this past 4weeks. Those weeks have been very good, let’s keep it up that way."

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