For one night, Gael Monfils delayed the big question: What’s next for French men’s tennis?

Monfils' Midnight Miracle: How Gael got it done

“Where have the great French men’s tennis players gone?” It’s a question we’ve heard more than a few times in the early days of Roland Garros this week.

It’s not a new question. France’s Davis Cup-winning Musketeer generation began aging out of the tour about five years ago. Julien Benneteau, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon, among others, have taken their final bows in Paris, and 37-year-old Richard Gasquet will be doing the same before long. All of that is natural.

What’s surprising is that France, a Grand Slam nation with a well-funded federation, one of the most engaged fanbases in the world, and a wealth of coaching knowledge, has yet to replace them. The highest-ranked French man is 24-year-old Ugo Humbert at No. 40; the second-highest is 34-year-old Adrian Mannarino. Third is Gasquet. As Italy and Canada have climbed the tennis totem pole, France has fallen.

It’s obvious that the French need to believe in themselves more. We have to put an end to this negative talk about the French being mentally weak; we have to banish this term from our vocabulary. Louis Borfiga to Carole Bouchard

Why the dry spell? In 2006, the man behind the rise of the Musketeers, Louis Borfiga, left the French Tennis Federation (FFT) after 21 years to take over junior development in Canada. His success, clearly, went with him. In 2021, though, Borfiga returned to Paris as an advisor. Last year, Ivan Ljubicic, former Top 10 player and coach of Roger Federer and Milos Raonic, joined the FFT team. There’s a push in all sports in France, tennis included, to be at their best for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

In interviews with French journalist Carole Bouchard, Borfiga and Ljubicic each stressed the need to rebuild a winning mindset among the country’s juniors. The chain of success has been broken over the past decade, and the number of role models for young players in the country has been shrinking with every retirement.

“It’s obvious that the French need to believe in themselves more,” Borfiga told Bouchard. “We have to put an end to this negative talk about the French being mentally weak; we have to banish this term from our vocabulary.”

“The moment you break the ice, the moment one of them gets going, it’s very easy,” Ljubicic said, sounding a hopeful note. “That’s what’s happening in Italian and Canadian tennis. Then the landslide follows.”

French tennis may have had its long-waited ice-breaking moment—two of them, in fact—this spring. First, 19-year-old Luca Van Assche took a set from Novak Djokovic at the Srpska Open. Then, 18-year-old Arthur Fils won his first title, in Lyon. Van Assche is a clean, if somewhat undersized, ball-striker, while Fils is a sturdy, powerful athlete. Both teenagers took the court to rousing, expectant ovations on Monday at Roland Garros, and both acquitted themselves well. Van Assche beat Marco Cecchinato, while Fils took a set from 29th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. On Wednesday, Van Assche’s tournament eneded against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Yet the French future was quickly subsumed by its past, when the most entertaining Musketeer of all, Gael Monfils, returned to Court Philippe Chatrier for Tuesday’s night session. The 36-year-old, who hadn’t won an ATP match this season, took the Parisian crowd on a four-hour and 15-minute roller-coaster ride as only he can do. Many of those rides have ended in disappointment over the years, but not this one. In a career-topping, post-midnight performance, Monfils came back from 0-4 in the fifth set against Sebastian Baez, fought off cramps, revved the crowd, danced and chattered his way from one point to the next, and finished with a passing shot that clipped the net-cord and miraculously landed in for a winner.

As much as any other male player this century, Monfils has embodied the joy and the frustration of French men’s tennis. He had the athleticism to win major titles, but he didn’t have the stubborn will or the life-or-death competitive drive of the Big 3. He has always seen tennis as a brotherhood, rather than a battleground. On Tuesday, he reminded French tennis fans of what they’ve had and loved for the past 18 years, and made the questions about the future irrelevant—for one evening.

“It was a great atmosphere tonight, like I guess for some spectators as well,” Monfils said. “I know I have some friends for the first time they came to Roland Garros, so I think it was a good experience for them.”

Hopefully, there was a young player or two in that crowd, who saw what a French player can do, and what it can mean to his country. Tennis will be poorer without that flair.