Gael Monfils was born on September 1st, 1986 in Paris, France. As best as I can tell, Gael picked up the game the earliest out of anyone I've profiled so far - he was playing the sport as early as age two, thanks to his father, who was a football player from the French island of Guadelope and also dabbled in tennis. He was coached by his father until age 13, when he attended a Russian tennis academy for a year and, having completed training there, returned to France to further his training a year later. By the time he was 18, he was easily the world's best junior player; in fact, in 2004, he swept the Australian Open, Roland Garros, and Wimbledon titles as a junior, and seemed well on his way to sweeping all four tournaments before his run was halted at the U.S. Open by future pro Viktor Troicki. Encouraged by this incredible success on the junior level, Monfils turned pro the next year.
Big things were predicted for Monfils once he turned pro, and he had some initial success as a young pro in his first year on tour - he won a title in his first career final, reached two further finals, and finished the year at a strong #30. However, his career has been very up and down since then; he's kind of a hard player to profile for that reason, as he's never had a truly sustained run of greatness. His is a career that is filled with highlights (two Grand Slam semifinals, stays in the top 10, 29 career victories over top 10 opponents), lowlights (a mere 6-19 record in career finals), and, unfortunately, many injuries - since he turned pro, he's missed nine majors due to injury, including the final three of 2012 due to knee issues. He does play well in his home major - his first career Grand Slam semifinal came in 2008 at Roland Garros, and he has three further quarterfinal appearances, as well. His best year on tour may have been last year, in fact - he finished the year in the top 10 for the first time, peaking at #6.
Even in a season filled with heights he has never reached, however, Monfils still had to battle criticism that he has often endured throughout his career - that he is too aloof and uncaring in the biggest moments. His run to the 2016 U.S. Open semis perhaps best exemplified this; Monfils, perhaps playing the best sustained tennis of his career (he won a title in Washington and made the semifinals of the Canadian Masters event), reached the semifinals of the tournament having not dropped a set en route. In the semis, he played the then-world #1 Novak Djokovic, and used tactics which many of the observers of the match called bizarre: he was accused of not giving his fullest effort, often hitting moonballs and playing the most casual of service returns, and appeared to many viewers to not give his fullest effort. He later defended the tactics, saying that this was the only way he knew how to try to win against Novak, and indeed, his efforts did eventually claim the third set in his eventual four-set loss. I didn't see the match, so I don't know what to make of his play that day, but I don't think that Gael would still be on tour after all these years if he wasn't giving his best effort. He's earned quite a bit of money in his career thus far, and it would be very easy for him to walk away and have a comfortable living if he didn't care - but that's just my opinion.
The thing that the enigmatic Monfils is probably best known for is his showmanship - he has admitted at times to trying to be as much of an entertainer as a great tennis player, and while that may have cost him better results at times, I don't think that anyone who has seen him play would deny that he's one of the best shotmakers in the game when he's flying on all cylinders. This probably works best as something that's seen, not described, so here's a brief but excellent video of, as has been commonly stated, "Gael being Gael."
I don't know if he'll ever break through and win a major before he hangs up his racket, but this man is never a dull watch, that's for damn sure. Keep on keeping on, Gael.
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