Gael Monfils concludes his final Grand Slam appearance at US Open

Gael Monfils played his final Grand Slam match Thursday night at the US Open, a battle with Learner Tien that ended in a loss to the talented young American.

Gael Monfils took a final Grand Slam bow Thursday night, losing to American Learner Tien in straight sets but basking in a last showering of love from the New York crowd.Thursday marked Monfils's 18th appearance at the New York Grand Slam, a run that began with a five-set first-round loss to Novak Djokovic of Serbia in 2005 when both men were teenagers.

French showman falls in straight sets to No 14 seed Monfils, 40, will retire at end of 2026 season Tien reaches US Open third round for first time It would have felt more fitting if Gaël Monfils went out with a roar, with a five-set epic matching the reputation he has built as tennis’s great showman. He may have preferred the kind of bow he made at his home French Open earlier this year, a thrilling five-set fightback that ended well after midnight, or one that had a few more of his dazzling signature shots, like the mid-air forehand that stole the show in his first-round win this week. Continue reading...

It would have felt more fitting if Gaël Monfils went out with a roar, with a five-set epic matching the reputation he has built as tennis’s great showman. Instead, the final grand slam match of Monfils’s 22-year career was a quieter farewell, a straight-sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 second-round US Open defeat to No 14 seed Learner Tien on Thursday night. The 20-year-old Tien wore Monfils out, forcing him into long rallies and constant movement along the baseline on a muggy night at Louis Armstrong Stadium.

The lights stayed up on Louis Armstrong Stadium, but the era ended all the same. Learner Tien, the 20-year-old American seeded 14th, closed out Gael Monfils 6-3 6-4 6-3 in a little over two hours. No fifth-set thriller. No midnight miracle. Just a swift, surgical handover from one generation to the next. And yet it …

Gael Monfils bid adieu to Grand Slam tennis with a hard-fought loss to Learner Tien in the second round of the U.S. Open on Thursday night. The 40-year-old Frenchman, who is planning to retire at the end of the year, was knocked out 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 by Tien, who at 20 is half Monfils' age and asked for and received his autograph after beating him in Montreal last month. “It's been a long ride,” Monfils said, calling it his second-best crowd after Roland Garros in Paris.