Frenchman Monfils outclasses Russia’s Rublev to win Qatar ExxonMobil Open title
In a case of being fourth time lucky, three-time runner-up Gael Monfils outclassed young Andrey Rublev in 60 minutes to win the Qatar ExxonMobil Open title for the first time, reported Qatar Tribune.
Thus the Frenchman finally lay his hands on the prestigious Falcon trophy at the Khalifa International Tennis & Squash Complex.
Monfils, the former world No.6 wild card entrant, who last triumphed at the Citi Open in Washington in 2016, demolished the young Russian to cruise to a 6-2, 6-3 triumph and break the Doha jinx.
“I’m very happy. I like this tournament so much. I always come back. And I was very close and finally got it. So I’m just very happy and very proud,” said the 31-year-old Monfils of his victory.
The Frenchman had been on the receiving end in three finals in 2006, 2012 and 2014 where he lost to Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Rafael Nadal respectively.
This time though, Monfils was in no mood to let the opportunity go. Beginning with booming serves, 200kmph and more, he called the shots from the word go to rattle Rublev.
While Monfils hit 29 overall winners, Rublev had 21 unforced errors.
Later, Rublev revealed that fatigue got the better of him.
“I think I was completely tired. I mean, you can see that even my shots didn’t have the same energy like previous matches. I was doing a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong shots. You can see even I was really slow today on the court.
“Every time he (Monfils) moved me to one side and most of the time it was almost over, or if I could catch one point then he was always killing me with the second. “You can see that today I really had no energy, no power in the legs and the speed of the ball was not even close like it was previous matches. I mean, previous matches was much faster and all this stuff and really tough for me,” said Rublev.
Picture courtesy: Qatar Tribune
