Monfils & Co Up The Ante As Race To London Heats Up

After a stunning run at the US Open, showman Gael Monfils is right in the mix to bring his must-watch game to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals from 13-20 November at The O2 in London.

Monfils is bidding to join Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and US Open champion Stan Wawrinka, who have already booked their places in London.

The Frenchman is bidding to qualify for the year-end championships for the first time and surged to sixth in the Emirates ATP Race To London after reaching the semi-finals in New York. Monfils did not drop a set through the first five rounds as he advanced to his first Grand Slam semi-final since 2008, before his run was ended by World No. 1 Novak Djokovic.

His showing at the US Open marked the end of a big summer for Monfils, who won the biggest title of his career at the Citi Open in Washington (d. Karlovic), an ATP World Tour 500 hard-court tournament, and reached the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup in Toronto (l. to Djokovic).

The current Top 8 is looking increasingly steady as the countdown begins to the season finale, with the Emirates ATP Race To London reaching its climax at the end of the regular season in Paris, where there are 1000 points on the line at the BNP Paribas Masters.

Canada’s Milos Raonic suffered a disappointing US Open as he fell in the second round to Ryan Harrison, but the Wimbledon finalist is next in line to qualify for the prestigious event at The O2, as he currently sits in fourth spot in the year-to-date standings. Raonic is looking to return to London for the first time since his debut in 2014.

Japan’s Kei Nishikori solidified his position in the Top 5 in the race with a run to the semi-finals in New York, where he was beaten by Wawrinka. Dominic Thiem and Rafael Nadal round out the current Top 8, with eighth-placed Nadal enjoying a 670-point cushion over Tomas Berdych, who was forced to miss the US Open due to appendicitis.

View Emirates ATP Race To London

Four spots remain in the eight-team doubles field at The O2, after US Open champions Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, and Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez all qualified during the fortnight in New York. They joined World No. 1 duo and Wimbledon champions Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, who are set to return after their debut last year.

Fourth-placed Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo are next in line to qualify, followed by would-be-team-debutantes Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi in sixth position and Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram in seventh spot. John Peers, who played alongside Murray at The O2 last year, is on course for a return visit alongside new partner, Henri Kontinen, with the Australian/Finnish duo currently eighth in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London.

Last year’s champions Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau currently sit just outside the qualification cut-off at ninth in the race, but are only 30 points behind Kontinen and Peers.

View Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London

The ATP World Tour resumes on Monday 19 September with ATP World Tour 250 tournaments in Metz and St. Petersburg. Then follows a three-week tour of Asia, with 250s in Chengdu and Shenzhen, 500s in Beijing and Tokyo and the eighth ATP World Tour Masters 1000 of the year in Shanghai.