gil simon He is playing his last tournament at the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy, where in the first round he defeated Andy Murray in three sets. The French player, over the years, has shown that he has extraordinary tactical intelligence and has often surprised his opponents on the biggest stages of world tennis.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that Simon managed to beat Roger Federer twice and Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal once. The 37-year-old Nice player has always studied the game of his rivals and has found a way to put them in difficulties by exploiting all his weaknesses.
The match played against Djokovic in 2016 at the Australian Open is emblematic. The Serb won in the fifth set, but made 100 free errors and risked leaving his favorite tournament early. In 2009, the Frenchman reached his best ranking by reaching sixth position and expressing tennis at the highest level.
Gilles Simon: «The Big 3 are the strongest, but I beat them all!
He said: «I had already beaten all the big 3. In my head, potentially, nothing was stopping me from becoming No. 1. It sounds arrogant, but my logic is always the same: these guys are monsters, but I beat them.
They are stronger, but they are not that far away. A few weeks before the 2008 Madrid Indoor Tournament, he had beaten Roger in Toronto. A game that makes me laugh, because I’m 4-0 in three minutes but I end up finding a small solution, then a second, etc.
However, I still think that the match against Rafa in Madrid was the biggest victory of my career. A little miracle. That comes after a series of miracles throughout the week. Nadal was number 1, he had won Hamburg, Roland Garros, Queen’s, Wimbledon, Toronto and the Olympic Games!
That game was a bullfight and I was the bull. But since I was supposed to lose ten times a week, I had this gap that is a strong point. Perfect mood. We played for more than three hours. It didn’t bother me at the time.»
