It is a bad day for the Musketeers and another bad day for France in general. Yesterday, French hopefuls Julien Benneteau and Jeremy Chardy were bounced from the tournament. Today, Argentine David Nalbandian dismissed Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-5 3-6 6-3.
Ninth-seed Gael Monfils crashed out of the tournament after 67 minutes of play. He lost to Serbian Janko Tipsaravic, ATP world number 56, 6-1 6-3. Sporting a new haircut, the Frenchman was up a break 3-1 in the first set until Tipsarevic rattled off five straight games to snatch set from the Frenchmen. The Serb then cruised to take the next set and match in front of a stunned crowd.
Qualifier Andreas Beck, the troublemaker of Monaco, already sent Nicolas Kiefer home yesterday. The ATP world number 89 upset sixth-seed Gilles Simon 7-5 6-1.
Beck broke the Frenchman early in the first set, but Simon rallied to tie the set 3-3. Simon did his usual gig of hanging out behind the baseline while Beck punished any short return and cut off points quickly. The German then broke Simon in the ninth game to serve for the set, but Simon broke back. Beck then struck again to take the Frenchman’s serve, but this time Beck held serve for the first set. In the second set, Simon won the first game and then the 23-year-old qualifier won the next six games for the set and match.
Simon continues to struggle this year. He clearly needs to step up his game and stop hanging out behind the baseline. Luckily for Simon, most of his points are at the end of the season, and he has some time to get it together before he starts really sliding in the rankings.
Monfils has had a pretty good season in the smaller tournaments, but just average in the larger tournaments. Then there is this performance where he is sent home in the first round of a Masters tournament.
If this keeps up, Musketeer Watch might become Musketeer Intervention. There seems to be less swashbuckling and more buckling of late. Luckily, Tsonga is scheduled to play in the next tournament.
(Images: AP)
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