AUSTRALIAN OPEN – Gaël Monfils will not go to Melbourne but has the Games in mind

Gaël Monfils will not be at the Australian Open next January. In an interview with Canal Plus, the Frenchman announced his package for the first round of the Grand Slam 2023, from January 16 to 29. This is a thoughtful choice on the part of the current French N.4 (and 52nd in the world) who wishes to skip the Melbourne tournament in order to benefit from a “protected classification” next season.

“There’s this protected ranking, when you haven’t played for a certain number of months“, he told Canal Plus. “I know that if I take it, I will have to miss the Australian Open in order to complete my six months. It’s gonna be my decision“. The 36-year-old Parisian has been absent from the ATP circuit since the Masters 1000 in Montreal and his retirement in the third round against the Briton Jack Draper. The protected classification allows a player absent from the circuit for six months in a row to line up on tournaments when his real ranking should not allow it.

If he makes this impasse to have his classification protected, Monfils does not however intend to hang up his rackets immediately. He has 2023 in mind but also the 2024 Paris Olympics.”2023 is an important year for me, a year of transition, between the injury and big goals to be really competitive and to be in the competition to get this qualification for 2024launched Monfils on Canal. I wouldn’t like to miss them, the Olympics, that would be my last too. It would be, I hope not my last year, maybe the year after. I said I’d love to play until I’m 40, but the longer I stay with my daughter, the more I feel a little less.”