Gael Monfils has qualified for his first ATP World Tour Finals in London after producing the best season of his career. His playing style has always been entertaining to watch, partly because you never really know what Monfils will show up. Will he walk around the court semi-interested because he didn’t feel like playing that day (Kyrgios comes to mind here) or will he hit 160 km/h forehand winners and crazy jump-tweeners and completely crush his opponent? Monfils can play both aggressively and defensively, he can play strategic mastermind tennis and also act (mentally) like he has never played a tour match before.
But he has gotten his game together better this year and besides a strange match against Djokovic in the US Open quarter-finals, he has been quite stable. Maybe it’s his new Swedish coach Mikael Tillström, maybe he’s just made a promise to himself to do everything in his power to improve his results (let’s hope we get that kind of resolution from Fabio Fognini soon). Whatever the reason for his great season, it will be interesting to watch him play in the World tour finals.
But at Tennisnerd we not only want to watch our favourite players, we also want to know what racquets they use. As we’ve written countless of times before, it’s rarely what the racquet companies advertise. Instead they use something called a paint job, where they paint the racquet in the same design as the latest model being sold. And they do come out with new models (mostly updated versions of existing models) quite frequently – every 1-2 years.
In Monfils case, he’s been using Wilson since around 2012, before he used an extended Prince Rebel 95Image may be NSFW.
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. The model he’s been endorsing is the Wilson Blade series, a great racquet in its own right, but what is actually underneath the paint is a Wilson pro stock model called the H19. This is very similar to Head’s illustrious PT57A that’s based on the Head Pro Tour 630 (labelled by many as the most versatile and feel-friendly racquet of all time). The H19 does, like the Head PT57A, offer a thin and rather flexible beam. It is not a racquet that will give you great power or a large sweetspot, but when you hit that sweetspot it is a feeling like not much else.
So when you watch Monfils in the World Tour finals he will surely be using the latest Wilson Blade 18×20 with Countervail technologyImage may be NSFW.
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but what is actually underneath is his trusted H19.
Gael Monfils racquet specs according to sources on tennis forums:
Length: 27.5 in (XL version)
Weight (strung): 345 g
Balance (strung): approx. 31.0 cm
String pattern:18 x 20
grip size: custom grip (between L4 and L5)
Silicone in handle, lead not visible
Leather Wilson grip