Gael Monfils quashed all rumors of an unexpected retirement from tennis, saying he intends to play for many more years to come. On Monday, the French star suffered yet another early exit from a major tournament. Monfils retired from his first-round tie at the Erste Bank Open 2020 in Vienna, midway through the match.

Later in the evening, Monfils called a sudden press conference scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. His statement on Twitter additionally read, “Many questions must be asked. Many answers will be provided.”

Given the recent struggles of the 34-year-old player, many fans feared he would announce his retirement from the sport. Replying to the concerns raised by one such fan, Monfils said, “Not all, no worries about that. I want to play for many more years.”

Gael Monfils’ poor run of form since his comeback

Monfils is in the midst of one of the roughest patches of his career. Monfils returned to competitive tennis for the first time in seven months at the Italian Open in Rome last month, after deciding to skip the American hard-court season.

Since then, Monfils has not won a single match and has been knocked out in the first round of four straight tournaments. He has managed to win just one set in those four matches.

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It started with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to Dominik Koepfer in Rome, before a straight-set loss to another unseeded German Yannick Hanfmann in Hamburg. In his home Grand Slam at the French Open 2020, Monfils won a set but eventually lost 6-4, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 to unseeded Alexander Bublik.

On Monday in Vienna, Monfils again fell behind early again and lost the first set 6-1 to Pablo Carreno Busta. He was then down a break in the second set, before deciding to withdraw from the match due to an injury.

An impressive start to the 2020 season

With an aim to make a strong comeback, Monfils can take confidence from his form before the lockdown. He had an impressive start to the 2020 season. He made a fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open, losing to eventual finalist Dominic Thiem.

In his next three tournaments, Monfils reached the finals of two of those events and the semi-final at the Dubai Championships.

Now that retirement is out of the question, it is expected that Monfils wants to be transparent with his fans about his recent form and struggles. He is one of the most popular players on the ATP Tour.