Gael Monfils, Owner of The Best Tennis Highlight Reel I've Ever Seen, Announced His Retirement Today
I feel like I probably watch tennis the same way a lot of sports fans do. I watch the late rounds of the majors. When the top players in the world are squaring off, and I happen to be around a TV, I make sure to tune in. Every once in a while I'll watch an incredible Carlos Alcaraz match and think, "Fuck... that was awesome. I should really pay more attention to this sport."
But by next week I'll have forgotten all about it, and won't tune back in until the next major is in full swing, and Twitter reminds me that there's an entertaining match happening on my television right fucking now.
Anyways, when I woke up this morning and opened Twitter, as I do every morning (which I wouldn't recommend to anyone), I saw that professional tennis player Gael Monfils announced his retirement. I've heard of Gael Monfils. I know generally who he is (skinny black French guy). But upon his retirement announcement, @BarstoolTennis tweeted out a Gael Monfils Top 10 Points highlight reel, and holy shit. I was blown away. It's the best, or at least the most fun, tennis highlight reel I've ever watched. I can't believe I spent the last 15-20 years of my life not realizing that every time Gael Monfils was on TV, it should have been appointment television.
There's a lot of tennis players who don't necessarily play "exciting tennis" (in my opinion). But even if you're not a big tennis guy... idk how you could watch those highlights and not be blown away by some of his shots. On top of that, he's got a different vibe than most tennis players. He's got the baggy shorts. A wide variety of haircuts. He's a hell of a showman. Him coming back from down 2 sets to win a match in this year's French Open looks like it was about as fun of a sporting event as you could attend.
On top of that, everybody in the world of tennis seems to love him. He's married to women's tennis player Elina Svitolina.
Who helped record this tribute to Monfils ahead of the final year of his career.
I kinda feel like an asshole writing this blog about him despite only really learning about how exciting of an athlete he was just this morning. But if I enjoyed his highlights this much, I figured someone else might too. Thankfully he still has one year of tennis left. And if he was doing things like this just a few months ago, I gotta think he's still got a few more ridiculous points left in him.
Hell of a tennis player. The world could always use more showmen like him in sports. His highlights make me want to go find an old tennis video game from 2010 and play out Gael Monfils career so I can win him a few majors. I might just have to do that.