Just under a year ago, before sports momentarily stopped, Gaël Monfils was quietly the resurgent force in men’s tennis. He had won 15 of 16 matches while boasting two tournament victories, he navigated a surprise return to the top 10 at the age of 33 and he was the only person to truly threaten Novak Djokovic’s invincible start to the season, holding triple match point against the world No 1 in Dubai before he fell. The first day of the 2021 Australian Open was a simple reminder of how long ago that all was. Monfils, the 10th seed, became the first notable upset of the tournament as he lost 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in the first round to the world No 86, Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland. Monfils’ skirmish with Djokovic in Dubai was his final match before the tour suspension between March and August. He is yet to generate another match point. His record since returning in September is now 0-6. As the sport’s resident showman, he has struggled with the silence of empty stadiums and he was pained by the distance from his family. Each loss seems to send him deeper into a hole that he must find a way out of. “I play badly,” he said on Monday. “I can’t make a forehand. I make mistakes. I am six metres behind [the baseline] … No confidence. I am honest in telling you that I have no confidence. I don’t feel good, it shows. I don’t need to say more. It shows, I think.” Even though his press conferences are not always jubilant, it is unusual to see him so crushed. Monfils’ joy is the driving force of his game. His charisma marks him as one of the most popular players at any tournament and his colleagues speak warmly of his congeniality. For 17 years, he has entertained with his freakish athleticism and skills that have created endless highlight reels. The criticism throughout his career has always been that he is more concerned with pleasing the public than winning. That he smiles too much. Monfils has tried hard to escape his mental slump. He decided to shred the final months of last season, even skipping his beloved Paris Masters, in the hope that a fresh start in the new year would arrest him from his “negative spiral”. In the off-season he made a surprising decision, hiring Austrian Günter Bresnik as his new coach. Bresnik, formerly the longtime coach of Dominic Thiem, is one of the hardest, most rigid taskmasters in the sport. Monfils is one of the freest spirits. As the new year arrived and he looked ahead, Monfils tried to be hopeful. Now 34 years old, he recently spoke of his desire to maintain his career until he is 40. He is extremely online; his Twitch channel overflows with positive, frequent content. During his 14-day modified quarantine in Melbourne, he even livestreamed his practice sessions. He seemed happy. But in the heat of battle nothing changed. In his opening match of the year against the world No 11, Matteo Berrettini, in the ATP Cup, Monfils attempted to relentlessly attack against one of the biggest hitters in the sport, blowing himself off the court in a flurry of errors. On Monday against Ruusuvuori, he veered to the opposite extreme by scampering behind the baseline in the futile hope that his opponent would offer enough mistakes to relinquish the match. He did not. Monfils is lost, unable to find the right way to play, hoping that his luck will soon turn. At the end of his raw post-match press conference, Monfils was asked by a French journalist what he clings on to for hope in these moments of intense doubt. Monfils responded without hesitation: “To nothing. I will give my mother’s simple sentence,” he said. After 10 minutes of speaking from the heart, Monfils finally lost his composure. He began to cry. “She will tell me: ‘We must continue to train and it will come back. This is the only trick.’” While Monfils continued his struggle to adjust to the reality of pandemic tennis, other players had more specific issues. Some players unfortunate enough to endure a 14-day hard quarantine, including the 2016 champion Angelique Kerber who lost 6-0, 6-4 to Bernarda Pera, could not escape the consequences. However, one success was Bianca Andreescu, whose time in quarantine was an afterthought after she returned to competition for the first time in 15 months with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 win over Mihaela Buzarnescu. The 25th seed, Benoît Paire, who lost in four sets to Egor Gerasimov, angrily spoke out about being confined to his room for 14 days. Paire previously tested positive for Covid-19 before the US Open and was withdrawn from the tournament. “I think it’s shit, and what happened is shameful,” he said. “Afterwards, my level of play was good, I think my attitude was good. I hope I didn’t hurt my elbow too much. But otherwise, overall I’m very disappointed with this tournament.” Elsewhere, Novak Djokovic dismantled Jérémy Chardy 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 to secure his 14th victory in 14 tries against the Frenchman and Simona Halep easily won 6-2, 6-1 against Lizette Cabrera in under an hour. Monday concluded with a glimpse into the future as the 21-year-old 11th seed, Denis Shapovalov, beat 19-year-old Jannik Sinner in a tense, high quality five-set match, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.