Roger Federer Faces Gael Monfils: Is He Ready to Win the French Open 2011?

The French Open today will be witness to a particularly thematic match and rivalry.

It is one that has graced the stade Roland Garros over the last few years and which, with only half of the proposed men's quarterfinals in action today, is all the more poignant.

At a deep and fundamental level, Roger Federer's next match against Gael Monfils is but a continuation of a storied chronicle which this wondrous tournament has been compiling over the last few seasons. It is that timeless, age-old conflict between the new and the old, the young and the veteran, the intrepid and the wary.

We’ve seen it with Federer-Nadal, and in 2009, facets of this mighty tapestry, in Federer-Del Potro and most stunningly, Nadal-Soderling.

On another, more quotidian plane, we have before us today a fine, truly terrific offering. Federer’s matches against Monfils here in Paris have always been rather fateful—for the Frenchman, on the one hand, trying to hoist the fortunes of his country ever further by an unprecedented French win over the mighty Federer.

For Federer, on the other hand, it serves as another significant moment in prolonging the myth of his dominance. There is something in the defeat of a Frenchman at the French Open that accrues the perfect respect for a player in the eyes of the Parisian crowd.

All this, of course, without mentioning that Federer is firmly a crowd favourite in Paris, and this too, without his phenomenal record against Monfils here.

Simply, the Swiss master has only lost one set, ever, against him in two matches.

Every new encounter brings the baggage of the novel, however, and Monfils would not be without a chance, certainly. Yes, Federer does lead 5-1 in their head-to-head, and twice already he has very deftly negotiated the deep defences of the Frenchman.

But Monfils did earn his first win ever against Federer in their last match, and, ceteris paribus, has always possessed a killer game.

That last win, too, was in Paris—albeit in the much different and perhaps more parochial setting of the BNP Paris Open at the end of last year, when Monfils won 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. But let’s not get carried away—that was on an indoor hard court, where the speed of things, and the ability to turn defense into offense, just happened all that speedily enough to have caught Roger off guard. That loss, too, having squandered four match points.

Clay, however, has always seemed the more natural surface for Monfils—it is just that perfectly soft, grindy place where his defensive skills ought to be able to marry themselves to that thespian element in his game, and evoke that appropriate amount of crowd raucousness on which he thrives.

More serious, though, are both the prospects of Monfils today, and, by that count, the manner in which he closed out Ferrer yesterday. There was a notable moment in the fifth set against the Spaniard, when he closed out the first break of serve to lead 4-1.

It was a look of despair—but that kind of competitive, hungry despair, which he gave to his box, which has come rarely in his career. Is the clown finally finding his feet as a master stuntman?

Possibly—and that will have to be seen. Federer will have much to say about that, and would probably like to add, too, that 5-1 head to head he enjoys (for the moment).

But from him, also, has exuded that brand of fiery, classic determination, which has eluded his game in moments in the last 24 months. It takes a year to win something, and then another to lose it and realize how precious winning it was.

Nearly two years, incredibly, have passed since Federer last won the French.

His match today will certainly be the biggest test. While Monfils stands to fulfil a common narrative path, in making that longed-for breakthrough, Federer readies himself for the rarer feat, of finding some true slam-winning form in these so-called ‘latter-years’ of his career.

Monfils, playing the tennis we know he can, will provide just the correct sort of motivation.

He provides that exact combination of youth, defensive power tennis and wilful desire necessary to counter Federer’s own merits as the elder statesman—the classically trained, aggressive minded reformer of 21st century tennis. The reformation he wrought in the sport in 2003, of course, has by 2011 pervaded to the ranks of players like Monfils.

Everyone plays with a big power game now, and turning defense into offense is a staple of rally construction.

Monfils just happens to be sufficiently defensively minded, however, to pose himself as a veritable counterpoise to Federer’s glorious florescent offense. No doubt, this will be Federer’s greatest test so far—it won’t just be difficult for Monfils.

The Frenchman, after all, did nearly win that first set in their 2009 edition, playing just passively enough to lose that opportunity.

It would take many more opportunities, and a robustly exploitative mood in those moments, to topple Federer. By the same token, our 29-something Federer will also need to be set in his mind on a system of offense. With luck, he will find himself in the French Open semifinals, a stage at which he has not failed to win since 2005.

There, of course, awaits Novak Djokovic and the dream Friday matchup the tournament’s organisers had been hoping for from the moment the draw was released.

For Federer, that match would promise just the same tactical conundrums, only magnified by many times—playing Monfils would be awfully good practice for them.