Retour
Gael Monfils returned to the Paris Masters to say goodbye after he suddenly entered retirement last month. The former world No. 6 was meant to compete here, but ended his career early, shortly after his split from Elina Svitolina.
While he felt unable to play, Monfils came to the La Defense Arena for a special farewell ceremony, and shared a touching tribute to his and Svitolina's four-year-old daughter, Skai.
"Before I go, my little girl, Skai, she wanted me to talk about her! ‘You don’t talk enough about me, dad, so you have to talk about me’. So, Skai, if you see me talking to you right now – or maybe you’ll see it later. She asked me, ‘Why does everybody come and say hello to me? Is it because daddy is a very nice person? I’ll be a nice person too’," he recalled.
"She said, ‘I want to be a champion as well’. And I said, ‘You want to be a champion of what?’ She said, ‘A champion of everything!’ [I said] ‘You’re going to have to pick something’.
"She said, ‘I want to be the champion of speaking – and a tennis champion’.
"You’ll have good genes, that’s for sure. So I want to dedicate this night to you, Skai. My last tennis presence on the 3rd of November, 2026. So Skai, your father was a tennis player, he loved tennis. I grew up in Paris. And you will be a champion one day. Hopefully, you’ll play in Paris one day."