Australian Open recap: Gael Monfils’ run ends as Melbourne heat and long matches dash dreams

On By Littum

Follow The Athletic’s Australian Open coverage

Welcome to the Australian Open briefing where Athletics will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.

On day nine, Gael Monfils’ magical run came to an end as remarkable feats caught up with players all over Melbourne Park.

Mirra Andreeva finds relief from the singles exit on the doubles court

After a disappointing defeat to world no. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Sunday Mirra Andreeva found refuge a few hundred meters away.

She hopped over to John Cain Arena from Rod Laver Arena to play doubles with fellow Russian and close friend Diana Shnaider. They enjoyed themselves as they always do, beating the Italian pair of Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani, avenging their defeat in the Olympic gold medal match five months ago.

They were in action again on Monday when they got the win over Australian pair Kimberly Birrell and Olivia Gadecki. Andreeva and Shnaider won the Brisbane event earlier this month. They work very well as a pair, the classic rightie and leftie combination, and both have told Athletics how they try to make each other laugh and keep things light.


Andreeva (left) and Shnaider are becoming a formidable force in doubles. (Shi Tang/Getty Images)

For Andreeva, 17, and Shnaider, 20, it cannot be understated how much of a bonus this sort of thing is: a break from the suffocating pressure of the singles tour, even for such young players who should in any rational sense have been given time. It doesn’t always work that way with rankings like no. 13 (Shnaider) and no. 15 (Andreeva), and given their previous success together, they will spy an opportunity for a deep run.

They play unseeded Kamilla Rakhimova (another Russian) and Sara Sorribes Tormo in the quarterfinals.

go deeper

GO DEEPER

The kids were okay: Why women’s tennis is no longer a world of teenage prodigies

Charlie Eccleshare

Gael Monfils bows out of the Australian Open with a different kind of highlight reel

Here’s the problem with playing Gael Monfils. Even when he has no legs, it is very hard.

From the middle of the second set against Ben Shelton on Sunday, Monfils, who is 38, had the legs of a 70-year-old. He was on pace to become the oldest man to win an ATP Tour title before entering the second week of the Australian Open and recording his first ever top-five win at a Grand Slam over Taylor Fritz.

But Monfils, tennis acrobat and magician, did the math. He needed to hit a good shot four times in his service games, then seven in a tiebreak if he could make it that far. In Shelton, the 22-year-old American flamethrower, he was playing someone who was still learning how to return against a great server and someone who had succumbed to Adrian Mannarino’s trickery at last year’s Australian Open.

And then a career full of highlight-reel moments got another hour and a half of those unlike the rest. There were no bouncing backhands or split winners or twisting aerial overheads, but what followed throughout the second set and all of the third, except for the final points, should still leave jaws on the floor.

go deeper

GO DEEPER

‘You know my name. It is impossible. I did it’: Gael Monfils has no regrets

Monfils can win games and points imitating a backboard as much as he can when he pretends to be a magician. He just needs his opponent to cooperate by hitting the ball back to him and letting Monfils’ rubber arm do its job. He can keep a tennis ball on his strings seemingly forever, putting the ball into perfect spots or just putting it back until Shelton made a mistake.

“He painted lines with his forehand and his backhand. Just ripping the ball,” Shelton said later. tries, but he hits a lot of winners.

Could this really happen? It sure looked like it could, one serve bomb after another until Shelton finally started hitting the lines again and Monfils’ legs just couldn’t work anymore.

“The little kid in me always wants to see Gael win. I always want to see him hit the highlight reel and the trick shot,” Shelton later said.

“Players always get mad when the crowd is against them or not for them, but honestly all I could do today was appreciate the fans getting behind him. It was just a cool moment for me to be a part of.”

When it was over, Shelton, who has been watching Monfil’s highlights on YouTube for most of his life, pointed to one of his idols and clapped his racket to get the crowd louder. Not for himself, but for Monfils.

Matt Futterman

A day of remarkable runs ended with their brilliance

It had to happen eventually. Long-shot races generally come apart, burning out the luster that made them last.

Elena Rybakina did bravely with a bad back but fell in three sets to Madison Keys.

Eva Lys, a lucky loser, ran into the Iga Swiatek buzzsaw and finished in 59 minutes.

Alex Michelsen, the 20-year-old American who took out two seeds in Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov in the first week, could not get through the foot speed and endless retrieving of hometown favorite Alex De Minaur.

And Learner Tien, the 19-year-old qualifier from Orange County and slayer of Daniil Medvedev, fell victim to a familiar Grand Slam nemesis: a very late night on the job.


Teacher Tien’s incredible run at his first Australian Open has ended. (Graham Denholm/Getty Images)

“For the last few days I had a lot of adrenaline that kind of masked how tired my body actually was,” Tien said in an interview after falling in four sets to Lorenzo Sonego.

“From the beginning of the fight, I just felt like I never got the second wind or the kick that got me going like it did in some of my other fights, especially my third round.”

Matt Futterman

Iga Swiatek rumbles on

This is getting a little ridiculous now. After dispatch Eva Lys 6-0, 6-1 to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals, Iga Swiatek has lost a total of two games in his last two matches and four in his last three. She has lost 10 throughout the tournament, and even for someone who has rattled off bagel and breadstick (6-1) sets with such regularity that “Iga’s Bakery” has entered tennis parlance, it’s still been a spectacular first few matches for the world. 2.

She was so dominant that Lys, who had world no. 2 down 15-40 in the first game of the game, could only extend to 59 minutes. The three points Lys won in the first game accounted for 30 percent of her total in the entire first set, while Swiatek made 43 of the 45 returns she hit in the match.

Next, she plays Emma Navarro, who was involved in another marathon battle to edge past Daria Kasatkina. Navarro, no. 8 seed, has played four three-setters and has been in serious danger of exiting the tournament in all of them. So far she has used her remarkable tenacity and toughness to get through, but Swiatek in this form is a test where getting to the third set is the hardest part.

go deeper

GO DEEPER

Emma Navarro’s reluctant step into the tennis limelight

Charlie Eccleshare

Shot of the day

That is the point of the tournament, which has been completed by Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune.

Recommended reading

Australian Open Men’s Draw 2025

Australian Open Women’s Draw 2025

Let us know what you noticed on the ninth day…

(Top photo by Gael Monfils: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)