The early days of this year’s US Open can be told in a series of farewells to competitors who plan to end their careers this year. The most moving of them all came in the form of Gaël Monfils’s grand departure inside Louis Armstrong Stadium against the wildly talented 20-year-old Learner Tien. Tien was competing in front of his home crowd, one of the Americans capable of a deep run, but for much of his straight-sets defeat the Frenchman had the American crowd in the palm of his hands.
Beyond the massive popularity he has garnered among tennis fans, one of the most striking parts of Monfils’s long farewell was seeing how highly nearly all of his fellow professionals, particularly his fellow black players, regard him. Frances Tiafoe says he spent his youth looking up to Monfils. Arthur Fils considers Monfils his older brother. Naomi Osaka’s nickname for Monfils, one of her idols, is simply “the Goat”. They all hold Monfils in such great esteem, and for good reason.
