Once known as the “little Mozart of French tennis,” Richard Gasquet is set to end his career without a major to his name.
At 38, the French player renowned for his exceptional one-handed backhand told L'Equipe newspaper Thursday that he will end his career after the French Open in front of his home fans.
"I’ll be stopping at Roland Garros next year," Gasquet said. “I think this is the best time for me to do it. It’s the best tournament to do it. It’s wonderful, and we’re lucky as Frenchmen to be able to retire in such unbelievable places. The end is always complicated, as all the former great players have often told me. You never know when, how, where. As far as I'm concerned, it was obvious.”
Gasquet, who reached a career-best ranking of No. 7 back in 2007, was once regarded as a potential Grand Slam winner but could never get past the semifinals at any major.
Gasquet reached the Wimbledon semifinals twice and was also a semifinalist at the U.S Open. He claimed 16 Tour titles, most recently last year in Auckland, and was a member of the France team that won the 2017 Davis Cup.
Following in the footsteps of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon, he is the third member of a gifted generation of French players that emerged nearly 20 years ago — which also includes Gaël Monfils— to call it quits.
Gasquet, who has dropped to the No. 133 spot, said he would never have imagined playing for so long after starting when he was 3 years old with his father, Francis, who ran a tennis club.
“I play against 18-19 year olds, which is weird,” he said “”Nineteen years younger sounds crazy. Very few players make it to 38."
Gasquet, who has played 1,005 matches since he turned professional, won his Tour debut match at 16 at the Monte-Carlo Masters back in 2002. A few years earlier, when he was just nine years old, Gasquet was on the cover of Tennis Magazine, which asked in a headline: “The champion that France is waiting for?”
When he turned pro, Gasquet was compared to another emerging player, Rafael Nadal.
But as his Spanish rival established himself as one of the all-time greats, Gasquet, who never beat Nadal in 18 matches on the main tour, could not live up to the great expectations that had been placed on his shoulders.
"It’s wonderful to have been compared, for a little while, to Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest sportsmen in history," Gasquet wrote in his memoirs. “Deep down, I take it as a huge compliment. But how much it hurt me!”
Nadal’s shadow remained to the end. A few hours after Gasquet announced his retirement, it was Nadal’s turn to announce his departure from tennis.
Gasquet said he plans to start studying at a management school and would like to train young players.
“I’ve had a great career as a player, and now I need to shape the one after that,” Gasquet said.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
FILE - Carlos Alcaraz, left, of Spain is congratulated by Richard Gasquet of France following their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)
FILE - France's Richard Gasquet plays a shot against Italy's Jannik Sinner during their second round match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
FILE - Richard Gasquet of France plays a backhand return to Carlos Alcaraz of Spain during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - France's Richard Gasquet plays a shot against France's Arthur Rinderknech during their first round match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Tuesday, May 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A United Nations official says Israeli fire has wounded two peacekeepers in Lebanon.
The official was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official says Israeli forces on Thursday fired on three positions of UNIFIL, the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in the Gaza Strip killed at least 27 people on Thursday, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding among civilians, without providing evidence.
Israel has continued to strike at what it says are militant targets across the Palestinian enclave even as attention has shifted to its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and rising tensions with Iran. The military launched a large-scale air and ground operation against Hamas in northern Gaza earlier this week.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought, said the strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people, including a child and seven women. It said several other people were wounded.
An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances streaming into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces.
“We appeal to the world. We are dying!” one man screamed.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike targeting a militant command and control center inside the school. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that were turned into shelters in Gaza, accusing militants of hiding out in them.
Witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the strike occurred while school managers were meeting with representatives of an aid group in a room normally used by Hamas-run police who provide security. They said there were no police in the room at the time.
The Hamas-run government operated a civilian police force numbering in the tens of thousands. They largely vanished from the streets after the start of the war as Israel targeted them with airstrikes, but plainclothes Hamas security personnel still exert control over most areas.
Hamas has continued to launch attacks on Israeli forces and fire occasional rockets into Israel more than a year after its Oct. 7 attack ignited the war.
Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities in that attack, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
The Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, drawing Israeli airstrikes in retaliation.
The fighting steadily escalated, and eventually boiled over into all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out waves of heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching a ground invasion. Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.
Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups across the region that refer to themselves as the Axis of Resistance against Israel. Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah militants.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that its response to the Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” without providing further details, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed.
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Tents are crammed together as displaced Palestinians camp along the beach of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
