A rolled ankle did little disrupt Gael Monfils’ route towards the last eight of the Japan Open after he downed compatriot Gilles Simon 6-1, 6-4, in the second round.
The deceivingly straightforward scoreline was not a true reflection of the encounter between the two Frenchmen. After Monfils raced to take the opening set in just 26 minutes, an early drop of serve in the following set enabled Simon to guide himself to a 4-1 lead. Two games away from losing the second set, the second seed encountered another setback when he was forced to halt the match after jarring his ankle during play.
Monfils down 1-4 in 2nd set against Simon in Tokyo, twisted ankle. Who but Gaël could use ankle roll as wake up call to win 6-4, win match?😜 pic.twitter.com/dthf2kWv7W
— TroubleFault (@troublefault) 6 October 2016
Despite the initial worry from Monfils and his camp, the incident failed to have a lasting negative effect on him. Resuming play it was clear that the unexpected turn of events disrupted Simon’s momentum after he dropped his service two consecutive times to enable Monfils to close the match out.
“In the second set, Gilles started to run a lot better. He played really great for four games or so and I knew I needed to be patient for his level to come back down a bit,” Monfils told atpworldtour.com.
“At the same time, I still needed to be the aggressor. I’ve made improvements mentally, physically and technically this year, and that helped me today against Gilles.”
Monfils will be hoping for a less dramatic match in his quarter-final meeting with the big serving Ivo Karlovic. The Croat hit 24 aces and 39 winners to edge out Janko Tipsarevic 7-6(9), 7-6(5), in what was an epic encounter. The 37-year-old will be playing in his sixth quarter-final on the ATP Tour this season.
The upcoming encounter in Tokyo will be the second meeting between Monfils and Karlovic this year after the final of the Washington Open in July. On that occasion the Frenchman battled to a three sets win. Looking ahead to the clash, Karlovic has praised the performance of his higher ranked opponent this season.
“Monfils has been playing much better this year. He made some changes to his service motion, bringing up his right leg, which have helped him. He’s a Top 10 player now and can only go up from here.” He said.
Elsewhere at the tournament, Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller required only 70 minutes to defeat Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-4. In the last eight, he will play sixth seed Nick Kyrgios, who received a walkover after Radek Stepanek withdrew due to a back injury.
