Gael Monfils has revealed that telling his father about his impending retirement was \u201cthe hardest part\u201d of his decision to step away from the sport.<\/p>\n
One of the most popular tennis players of his generation, Monfils<\/a> announced earlier this year that he would retire in the upcoming 2026 season, saying he felt \u201coverwhelmed with gratitude.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The 39-year-old reached a career-high of world No 6 in the ATP Rankings back in 2016 and won 13 ATP Tour titles, reaching the semi-final of both the French Open and US Open during his career.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic, Naomi Osaka, and wife Elina Svitolina were among those to pay tribute to Monfils at the time of his initial announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n While his final tournament is yet to be confirmed, the entirety of the Frenchman\u2019s 2026 campaign promises to be emotional, with the star beloved by players and fans across the globe.<\/p>\n And, in a new interview with RTL<\/em><\/a>, Monfils revealed that he had been pondering the decision to retire for quite some time before his official announcement.<\/p>\n He said (translated from French): \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it for quite some time. I\u2019m finally ready to say goodbye to this sport that has given me everything.<\/p>\n \u201cI still love tennis. But now it\u2019s more about age, recovery. I have a family now, other responsibilities. Performances are much harder to string together.<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz records staggering statistics on two surfaces that Jannik Sinner cannot match<\/a><\/p>\n Andy Murray makes Roger Federer practice revelation as he shares Novak Djokovic insight<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThese are simply natural things for any athlete. At some point, there is an end.\u201d<\/p>\n Among Monfils\u2019 key supporters across his career has been his father, Rufin.<\/p>\n A former professional football player, Rufin supported his son throughout his professional tennis journey, and the pair remain incredibly close.<\/p>\n Reflecting on his decision to step away from the sport and retire, Monfils revealed that telling his father about his upcoming retirement was the most challenging part of the whole process.<\/p>\n \u201cFor 40 years, my father has been driven by his son who wanted to play tennis from a very young age,\u201d added Monfils.<\/p>\n \u201cAnnouncing my retirement to my father was definitely the hardest part\u2026 I even told him that it wasn\u2019t easy to tell him.\u201d<\/p>\n Monfils is currently ranked 68th in the world, recording an 18-15 record across 2025.<\/p>\n The Frenchman started the season incredibly strongly, with victory at the Auckland Open in January making him the oldest ATP Tour champion since the tour officially launched in 1990<\/a>.<\/p>\n That was then followed by a run to the second week of the Australian Open, with Monfils stunning Taylor Fritz during his run<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, he was unable to maintain that form across the year, losing eight of his last nine matches on tour across the spring and summer.<\/p>\n Monfils has not played since retiring injured against Alexander Shevchenko in the opening round of the Chengdu Open in September.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: 2026 Adelaide International ATP Entry List: Novak Djokovic, Jack Draper & Stefanos Tsitispas to star<\/a><\/p>\n The post Gael Monfils reveals \u2018the hardest part\u2019 of announcing his retirement from tennis<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gael Monfils has revealed that telling his father about his impending retirement was \u201cthe hardest part\u201d of his decision to step away from the sport. One of the most popular tennis players of his generation, Monfils announced earlier this year that he would retire in the upcoming 2026 season, saying he felt \u201coverwhelmed with gratitude.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n