Gael Monfils scores 550th win of career in Miami, will play Carlos Alcaraz in third round

Gael Monfils has hit a big career milestone at the Miami Open, taking out No. 33-seeded Jordan Thompson in the second round of the Masters 1000 event, 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-2, on Saturday night—or Sunday morning, technically—for the 550th win of his career.

He's the 42nd man to reach that milestone in the Open Era (since 1968) and just the second Frenchman to do it in that time period, after Richard Gasquet, who's currently at 603 career wins.

Monfils is also the eighth active man to hit that number.

ACTIVE MEN WITH 550+ CAREER WINS (tour-level):
1,095: Novak Djokovic
1,070: Rafael Nadal
738: Andy Murray [incl. 2nd Rd win in Miami]
603: Richard Gasquet
582: Marin Cilic
569: Stan Wawrinka
559: Fernando Verdasco
550: Gael Monfils [incl. 2nd Rd win in Miami]

It’s been a breakthrough year for Thompson—just last month the talented Australian won the first ATP title of his career in Los Cabos, Mexico, and reached a new career-high ranking of No. 32 afterwards. He had also won his only previous meeting with Monfils, a 6-3, 6-1 victory at Indian Wells just over a year ago.

But Monfils was playing his first match back from a seven-month foot injury lay-off in the desert that night, and now a year into his comeback he’s a totally different player, and this season he’s already cut his ranking down from No. 74 to No. 47.

Thompson was in control early on Saturday night—not only was he up an early break at 2-0, but even after he got broken back, he stormed out to a 5-0 lead in the tie-break, eventually closing the hard-fought 69-minute set out on his third set point.

From there it was all Monfils though, as the Frenchman needed just 64 minutes to win the next two sets—a 27-minute second set and a 37-minute decider—to move safely into the third round.

Awaiting Monfils in the third round will be No. 2-ranked, No. 1-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, who cruised into the last 32 with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over fellow Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena.

Alcaraz and Monfils have met once before with the Spaniard prevailing, 7-5, 6-1, in the fourth round of Indian Wells in 2022.

Monfils, a former No. 6, has six career wins over Top 2 players, his most recent victory against that ranking class coming at Indian Wells two years ago against then-No. 1 Daniil Medvedev—he then fell to Alcaraz in the aforementioned match in the next round.