Richard Gasquet has had a long and sensational career marked by many beautiful one-handed backhands and successful years on the ATP Tour.
The Frenchman is still kicking around, and he is still playing some super-solid tennis overall. In Geneva, he took on a rusty Daniil Medvedev, who played well at times, but for the most part, he was outclassed by Gasquet.
The win is a significant one because, with it, the Frenchman achieved an unbelievable feat. Gasquet has now defeated every position in the Top 1000 of the ATP Rankings at least once.
He only needed to defeat a player who was ranked number two, and he did against Medvedev. It's an odd stat but very fascinating nonetheless.
It's an achievement that takes many years of playing tennis professionally, and also it involves a little bit of luck, as some players, by virtue of randomness, don't ever have to play some ranks in their whole career.
In Gasquet's case, he managed to collect wins over lower-ranked players of the Top 100 during the very early and very late years of his career, while he beat the best of the best in his prime.
The Frenchman has one win over world no. 1, when he managed to beat Roger Federer in a dramatic three-setter in Monte Carlo back in 2005, in a match that ended 10-8 in the third-set tie-break.
He managed to beat players ranked between the third and tenth place multiple times in his career, beating Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer when they were ranked third, as well as Andy Murray, David Ferrer, and Stan Wawrinka when they were ranked fourth.
The only rank Gasquet missed in his collection was the world no. 2 spot, and now, late in his career, he got the chance, and got also quite lucky that he played against Medvedev on the clay court, giving him the biggest chance to beat the Russian.
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