Could the next few years be dominated by the French tennis stars?

Be gentle im not one to post an article here often so may seem clueless or silly to most of you

After seeing the Tsonga article on here i had a look at the top 20 in the world and noticed a lot of very talented players all from France.

With the downfall Roger Federer is currently on due to age starting to get the best of him and Rafa struggling with injuries so isn't guaranteed to be around for a complete season, all that leaves is Djorkovic and Murray there in near future plus whoever comes through in the next few years.

This lead to me to think that people in and around the worlds top 20 could easily make it to top 3-5 in the world just by having an excellent year. This led to me to Jo Wilfried Tsonga the very talented Frenchman is currently world no.6 and hasn't hit the highs that his potential promises this could very well be the year where he breaks into the stranglehold that Novak,Roger, Andy and Rafa have been holding onto in most recent times.

I looked a bit further down the page and it lead me to Gilles Simon the tall Frenchman who is know for having a seemless technique by many and has been a former world no.6 until injuries forced him down to no.41 but has clawed his way back up the ladder no.12 currently although at 27 he's heading towards the latter part of his career the way he plays is not as physical as many and may be able to play on into he's 30's at a very high standard maybe heading for the top 5 in the world.

Then the led to me the very exciting talent that is Gael Monfils, The all action frenchman is one of the most physical players around in tennis today alongside Rafa Nadal. What makes him a special talent is the way he goes from defensive to attacking in one shot and being able to play on the counter with consummate ease and has previously broken the record for world's fastest forehand at 120 MPH. His potential is endless and could one day become the successor to Rafa Nadal as the biggest physical specimen in tennis and future Grand Slam winner.

These French players have been around for a while and aside from Tsonga nothing drastic has changed for them this year. With the situation at the top it would take something major for one of them to break through let alone for a group of them to dominate. Not really going out on a limb too much here but I think Tsonga is the best bet.

Hm, maybe, but there is quite a big gap to the top 4 and the French players haver shown a lack of really top drawer mental strength at times. Tsonga you can make the best case but Monfils is rather erratic and Simon has been around for a while now, I don't see the case that he would suddenly surge up the rankings, he may have been at 6 briefly but he was never established at that sort of ranking for several years.

3 years from now you could potentially see Nadal, Murray and Djokovic all at the top, other new young players like Raonic and Dolgopolov are more the ones to watch for future top ten new entrants perhaps.

There are certainly a lot of them - around twenty at the start of the USO this year.

However as far as getting silverware, for most of them they usually fall way short.

Tsonga is their best bet but although he gets the odd good results like against Federer he cant get past the winning post!

So as for domination

Gasquet, at the age of 21, had a career high of 7 and is now ranked at 19.
Monfils, at the age of 24, had a career high of 7 in '11 but is now ranked 16th.
Simon, at the age of 24, had a career high of 6 and is now ranked at 12.
Tsonga is the only one who has matched his career high ranking of 6 from 2008 and is the only one making inroads in slams
So no i don't agree with this article at all.

Not to be harsh on you, French players are on ATP top 100 for quite sometime, this doesnt mean they rule ATP, just have a look how many spanish players are in it, so many top 100 players doesn't mean it will produce a no.1 player automatically. French davis cup team is good but they dont have one single player who can rock all players from top to bottom.

fernando wrote:His potential is endless and could one day become the successor to Rafa Nadal as the biggest physical specimen in tennis and future Grand Slam winner.

This shows you are not watching tennis regularly , Monfil get tired so easy and is one of those low stamina guy, he wastes his energy in all show stunts and doesnt have a game or stamina to compete against the likes of Nadal even after winning the 1st set. How many time Gael has played great in the 1st set to a complete pauper in the 2nd set against great players? Tsonga can play 5 setters with more stamina than Monfils. Monfils is just a waste of talent.

No !

Tsonga, on his day, is unstoppable, but lacks consistency. Monfils, to me, is too much of a showman and not nearly fit enough to do consistently well.
The French are to be applauded for having so many top players but I can't see beyond the current top four when looking at who will finish in the top four at the end of 2012.
Say either Rafa or Djoko suffer a LONG-TERM injury (which is unlikely as I reckon they will pace themselves carefully in '12) I still don't envisage any French guys getting into the top four. Personally, if anyone did do it, I would like it to be Tsonga as he is so exciting when in full flow.
Don't know if anyone has a link to the SF in the AO in 08 when JWT absolutely blew Rafa away. Awesome tennis.

Naaaa, French players may be pleasing to watch but in the end are essentially a bunch of chokers. Always been, always will

J Kyle - Presume we should't get you on to the French performance against Germany in 1940?

Sir Fred: apologies, I dont't have much memories that far back, but I think you are right, there were few French players very good in the past, didn't they call them "the four Musketeers" ?

J-K. I actually meant the Second World War, but may be you really knew that? The Four Musketeers, who even I did not see, were from the 1920s. One - Jean Borotra - was a regular player in vet's stuff at Wimbledon very late into his life.
The evergreen Borotra was asked, aged about 94, whether he still played. He replied: "Not as much as I would like."
So the French have always had a lot of talent. Don't know what Charles de Gaulle's tennis was like.

sirfredperry wrote:J-K. I actually meant the Second World War, but may be you really knew that? .

Yes I did