Monfils addresses rumors about his lifestyle: "I eat McDonald's, but no one runs faster than me on the tour"
At 38 years old, Gaël Monfils is having an impressive first half of the season. He won Auckland and reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and Miami.
In an interview with Eurosport, the Frenchman addressed the rumors and criticism about his lifestyle during his career:
"People have talked about me pulling all-nighters playing PlayStation, sometimes poker too. That’s part of the myth. Yes, I’ll grab McDonald’s or kebabs and play FIFA until 2 a.m. with my friends.
Yes, it’s happened. But once! Even if I only do it once, it becomes a myth, a legend, and people struggle to distance themselves from it—they always exaggerate. Yes, I enjoy eating McDonald’s, but just like anyone else.
I remember one time, at 23, I was young and wanted to play FIFA. I stayed up with my friends until 2 or 3 a.m., ate McDonald’s, but the next day, there was practice—and I didn’t go. I owned up to it.
You can allow yourself to do that when you know your next tournament is in two weeks. You never do it the day before a tournament. You know when you can get away with it. So I’ve always loved this myth of ‘I eat McDonald’s, no one runs faster than me on tour, but yeah, I eat McDonald’s.’
I think my favorite part of this myth is the morning training sessions. I didn’t like training in the morning, that’s true. Immediately, I was labeled as lazy. But every time I went to a tournament, I played night sessions.
I played my matches at 7 or 8 p.m., so why would I train at 8 a.m.? Even when I was young, I found it strange—I didn’t really get it. I quickly noticed that at tournaments, the first matches started at 11 a.m. So I adapted, trained at that time, and didn’t bother anyone.
Some guys do their work from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Me? Maybe from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. I put in just as much work, just differently. But because I didn’t train at 8 a.m., I was labeled as lazy.
It’s true there was some provocation too. I played into it. It’s like the nugget myth with Usain Bolt. As if those guys only ate nuggets.
Of course, there’s some provocation. Everyone knows it, but not everyone understands it. If you don’t work, you can’t win."
