It's a little death": Tsonga reacts emotionally to Monfils' announced retirement
Between intimate confidences and nostalgia, Tsonga explains how he prepared Monfils for this difficult milestone, while admitting that seeing a traveling companion leave remains "a shared pain."
The famous Musketeers generation will definitively end at the close of 2026. Gaël Monfils, the last pillar of this generation of French players who all had their moment of glory, announced on Wednesday that he will retire at the end of next season, when he will be 40 years old.
A decision that Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was already aware of, as he mentioned in a brief interview with L'Équipe:
"He spoke to me about it a few weeks ago. We all needed to talk about it and get advice from those who have already taken that step, to anticipate things. He asked me: 'What's it like, how does it feel?' He's aware that it's not trivial, that it's not just like stopping eating bread. [...]
At the moment, even if we think it's a relief, it's like having all our teeth pulled out. You have to expect it to be painful.
It's a small mourning process, for me it took a year or two, it's been three and a half years now and it's better, but at the beginning you still feel like a player, it hurts too much to watch matches. And then especially you think 'What do I do at 11 am on a Tuesday when everyone is working?' You have to find something!"
The former world No. 5 also shared his feelings about this retirement of one of his friends on the tour:
"It's always a bit special. It's in a year, so a lot will still happen in the meantime, but every time one of us four stops, it tears away a part of us. We really lived together, maybe not glued to each other, but almost.
We've been together since our adolescence, it's one more step toward the grave of our careers. It's very powerful but it's a reality, it's a little death for us. Our whole lives we've lived only for this, when we say stop, we have to reinvent ourselves, become another person and detach from the character we embodied on the court.
