“To win the Davis Cup you need two things: the best players have to play and you have to excel. That’s not what we’ve done lately.”
Gilles Moreton
Asked about a recent meeting with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Lyon, which reportedly failed to reach an agreement, Moreton declined to elaborate. “I don’t have to tell you who I met,” he said. “We saw a lot of people, did the analysis we needed to do, and the choice of Gael Monfils was unanimous.”
Gilles Simon admitted that Monfils’ profile might have surprised some. “But honestly, when you think about it, if you want to bring a huge wave of freshness and a huge amount of attention to Davis Cup, I think it will do a lot.”
On whether Monfils could lead the group, Moreton said the people in his team “know the man perfectly”. “Collectively we felt he was someone who could provide what the French team needed and shock the system,” he explained. “The goal is the Olympic cycle leading up to Los Angeles 2028, plus two years of Davis Cup.”
Monfils was a candidate like the others, the FFT president added. “Gael is someone who has to work in an environment of trust,” he said. “I think he trusts me and the leadership of the Federation, but also the high-performance team: Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet, Alize Cornet. That was important to him.”
Simon: “For him, the cover is very important”
Monfils, who bid farewell to the tour in Paris this week, was considering a career change in banking in Switzerland. When asked if it was compatible with the captaincy, Simon put aside his doubts. “It’s not like he quit touring a long time ago,” he said. “He knows absolutely all the players, the foreign ones and obviously ours. Will he be relevant? Of course he knows. I think this meant more to him than you can imagine.”
For his friend, Monfils’ record in a blue shirt speaks for itself. The new captain notably beat David Ferrer in the 2010 quarterfinals and Roger Federer in the 2014 final in Lille.
“He performed at a level in Davis Cup that I haven’t seen any other player of my generation achieve. People tend to forget all that.”
Gilles Simon
Like Moreton, Simon was careful with Mathieu. “Polo did a good job as captain, there wasn’t much to criticize him for other than the end result,” he said. “But we followed that logic to the end and told ourselves that something has to change. Gael brings a different energy, a different approach. I think he makes a great change.”
How the new lineup will work, including how often the captain will be in tournaments, is still unclear, Simon admitted. In a statement from FFT, alongside Richard Gasquet, he does not want to “talk about org charts”. “For someone like Gael, the people around him are very important,” he emphasized. “He needs to know that we’re there around him, whether we’re on the organizational chart or not.”
“A huge wave of freshness”
A close friend of Monfils, Simon refused to make his choice, which is similar to him anyway. “You overestimate my importance,” he replied. “My job is to bring as many candidates to the table as possible and make recommendations, and then we all make decisions together.”
When asked if the appointment can bring Arthur son returning to the team, Simon remained cautious. “Football players make their own decisions,” he said. “But a new cycle begins with the 2028 Olympics. We know that Gael rallies people and that the entire locker room adores him. If it can get some of them to come, even for him, it will be good for everybody.”
