WATCH: Gael Monfils goes to Team World’s bench to argue with Felix Auger-Aliassime as John McEnroe and others watch the verbal altercation at the Laver Cup 2023
Gael Monfils walked up to the Team Europe bench with the hope of clearing out doubts amidst his heated battle against Felix Auger-Aliassime.
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Gael Monfils and Felix Auger-Aliassime seen in heated battle during their matchup. (credits: Twitter, Tennis-Infinity.com)
At the start of the 2023 Laver Cup, things had taken a different toll during the third matchup of the day when Felix Auger-Aliassime faced up against Gael Monfils with the hope of increasing Team World’s lead over Team Europe by 3-0. But on the other hand, the French veteran was having it easy going slow against the Canadian star. Monfils was taking frequent breaks during the match got Felix irritated with him pleading with the match umpire for a time violation.
As the match progressed, the exchange of words continued and the experienced Gael Monfils wanted to sort it out during the break when the scores were 3-4 in the first set. Monfils went to the Team World’s bench to speak to Felix regarding the issues circulating since the start of the match with World’s captain John McEnroe watching over without saying a single word.
Felix let his frustrations out to the umpire complaining, “Are you sticking to the ATP rules? Are you telling me that’s normal? He sits down for like 30 seconds. I mean, that a time violation warning. That’s not, ‘I’m gonna talk to him.’ Cause I can play games too. I can play games too.” Monfils said, “They call me and they tell me how [the Laver Cup] will be so nice; we can be free. And then I feel like, [this sucks?] because it hurt him, you know, it hurt him. And I don’t want to hurt him. Me I am here to have fun.”
Matches to watch out for on Day 2:
After a great exciting first day at the ongoing Laver Cup, the second day will bring a lot of top players to battle it out against one another. In the first match, Andrey Rublev will go head to head against America’s best Taylor Fritz in a singles matchup. The two have faced each other times in the past with Rublev winning on three occasions and Fritz winning four times.
Rublev will have a lot of hopes and pressure on his shoulders as Team Europe’s search for the first point goes on. After the first day, Team Europe leads 4-0 and Tommy Paul will battle it out against Casper Ruud in the second match of the second day. In the third match, Frances Tiafoe will play Hubert Hurkacz with the last encounter being a doubles encounter between Monfils/Hurkacz and Shelton/Auger-Aliassime.
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Soumyadeep Mondal
(882 Articles Published)