Gilles Simon is playing his last tournament at the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy, where in the first round he defeated Andy Murray in three sets. The French player, over the years, has shown that he has an extraordinary tactical intelligence and has often surprised his opponents on the most important stages of world tennis.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that Simon managed to beat Roger Federer twice and once Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. The 37-year-old from Nice has always studied the game of his rivals and found a way to put them in difficulty by exploiting all their weaknesses.
The match played against Djokovic in 2016 at the Australian Open is emblematic. The Serbian won in the fifth set, but made 100 free mistakes and risked leaving his favorite tournament prematurely. In 2009, the Frenchman reached his best ranking by conquering the sixth position and expressing a tennis of the highest level.
Gilles Simon: “Big 3 the strongest, but I beat them all!
He told: “I had already beaten all the Big 3. In my head, potentially, nothing was stopping me from becoming number 1. It sounds arrogant, but my logic is always the same: these guys are monsters but I beat them.
They are stronger, but they are not that far. A few weeks before the 2008 Madrid Indoor Tournament, I had beaten Roger in Toronto. A game that makes me laugh, because I take 4-0 in three minutes but I end up finding a small solution, then a second one, etc.
However, I still think that the match against Rafa in Madrid was the biggest victory of my career. A bit of a miracle. That comes after a series of miracles throughout the week. Nadal was number 1, he had won Hamburg, Roland Garros, Queen’s, Wimbledon, Toronto and the Olympics!
That game was a bullfight and I was the bull. But since I was supposed to lose ten times a week, I had this gap which is a strong point. Perfect state of mind. We played for over three hours. It didn’t bother me at the time.”
