Novak Djokovic beats Monfils to win Paris BNP Paribas Masters title
Novak Djokovic defeated Gael Monfils 6-2 5-7 7-6 to win the Paris BNP Paribas Masters title.
Djokovic, who crushed Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals, had to battle really hard to win the Paris title for the first time.
Monfils was outplayed in the opening set but then he thrilled the crowd by fighting back to win the second set and recovering from 4-1 down to level the decisive set before losing it 7-3 in a tiebreak.
Djokovic showed signs of nerves at times and had to wait for Monfils to double fault on the first match point to seal victory after two hours 43 minutes.
"I'm very happy that I managed to win a big tournament just two tournaments before the end of the season," said Djokovic. "Now I'm coming with a lot of confidence in London (to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals), and the only question is if I'm able to physically rest and get energy for that event."
"Winning back-to-back titles on this level is a huge achievement for me, and adding to that, beating No. 1, No. 2 of the world," said Djokovic. "So I'm very pleased with my performances in the past four, five weeks. I think winning back-to-back titles probably for the first or maybe second time in my career gives me even more motivation to make the same success in the future."
"I had to [dig deep], because in the last four finals that I've played this year in [ATP World Tour Masters] 1000 events I lost, so it was kind of in my head," admitted Djokovic. "I was thinking about it, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling, especially when I saw Gäel getting into the rhythm more. Of course [the] big support of the crowd gave him even more motivation and more energy towards the end of the match. So I was kind of fighting him and fighting the big pressure of the crowd. I was trying to hold all my nerves. At the end of the match, I threw all my emotions out and was happy."
"The only thing I see is that everything depended on this tie-break in the last set. I was not able to win that final tie-break," lamented Monfils. "I will be disappointed. I'll be disappointed today or tomorrow or in three weeks, because it was really tight. There's nothing that I did wrong. He played very well. He was hitting well and no mistakes," complimented the Frenchman. "I needed to fight and stay in there. I started playing better in the third set. He broke me. I was able to find my energy to come back."
Monfils closed the year on a 42-19 mark. He claimed a title in Metz and was runner-up at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel.
"It's [been] a very strange year," assessed Monfils. "I don't believe it's a very good season. I hope it's just a normal season. But I'm happy because I had one title and a final in an [ATP World Tour] Masters 1000. I would like to be Top 10. I'm not very far, but I'm not Top 10.
"This end of season gives me really the desire to work hard so that next year maybe I will have a full season. I'm thinking if I was able to play all the year round, all the tournaments, how good it would be. Without doing that, I'm already Top 13. I don't want to over-estimate myself, but if I had played a full year this year I would have been among the Top 10. I'm almost sure of that. I'm sure next year I will be able to get back within the Top 10."
Source AP and ATP
Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images
