Gaël Sébastien Monfils (; born 1 September 1986) is a French professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 6 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which he achieved in November 2016. His career highlights include reaching two major semifinals at the 2008 French Open and 2016 US Open, and three ATP Masters 1000 finals – two at the Paris Masters in 2009 and 2010, and the other at the 2016 Monte-Carlo Masters. Monfils was named the ATP Newcomer of the Year in 2005. He has won eleven ATP Tour singles titles and been runner-up twenty-two times, and has reached at least one ATP Tour singles final every year since 2005. Early life Gaël Sébastien Monfils was born on 1 September 1986 in Paris, where he was raised. His father Rufin Monfils is from Guadeloupe and is a former pro football player and France Telecom employee. His mother, Sylvette Cartesse, is from Martinique and worked as a nurse. Junior career (2002–2004) Monfils played his first junior match in January 2002 at the age of 15 at a grade 4 tournament in Sweden. Through this junior career, he compiled a singles win–loss record of 83–22, reaching the No. 1 junior combined world ranking in February 2004. Over the course of the same year, he won the boys' singles titles at the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon respectively. He was also crowned International Tennis Federation youth world champion. His win streak at junior grand slams ended at the US Open with a third round loss to Viktor Troicki. 2002 In 2002, Monfils finished runner-up at the Dutch Junior Open and won the German Junior Open. He ended the year ranked as the No. 4 junior in the world and also represented France in the Junior Davis Cup. 2003 Monfils got off to a positive start in 2003 and earned his first career ATP point at the France Futures No. 13 by reaching the second round. He also reached the second round at the France Futures No. 14, Egypt Futures No. 2 and the Spain Futures No. 28. In that year, he played a total of nine Futures events. This included a showing in the doubles final at the Spain Futures No. 27. In junior events, he was a semifinalist at Orange Bowl (losing to Marcos Baghdatis) and USTA International Winter Championships (losing to