Gaël Monfils reached his first Grand Slam semifinal since 2008, defeating his French countryman Lucas Pouille, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, Tuesday afternoon at the United States Open.
Monfils, the No. 10 seed, has played in only one major semifinal, at the French Open in 2008. Since then, he had lost all six of his quarterfinal matches at Grand Slam tournaments before winning Tuesday.
But Monfils, who turned 30 last week, is dialed in at this Open. He has not lost a set as he heads into a semifinal against the winner of Tuesday night’s match between top-ranked Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the third Frenchman in the quarterfinals.