He was still reaching milestones until the very end—he rallied from 6-4, 5-3 down to defeat Andy Murray in the first round, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, for the 300th hard-court win of his career, and then battled for over three hours to defeat Taylor Fritz in the second round, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, for the 504th overall win of his career, passing Feliciano Lopez for ninth-most among active men’s players.
But it had to come to an end eventually: Gilles Simon played the 898th and final match of his 20-year professional career in front of his home crowd in Paris on Thursday, falling to Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-1, 6-3, in the third round of the Masters 1000 event.
And so, one of the most successful French players in ATP history calls it a career—here are 10 of his most impressive career stats:
With 504, he has the third-most career wins for a Frenchman in the Open Era. Only Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils have more.
MOST CAREER WINS BY A FRENCHMAN IN OPEN ERA (tour-level)
588: Richard Gasquet
525: Gael Monfils
504: Gilles Simon
482: Yannick Noah
470: Fabrice Santoro
467: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
389: Cedric Pioline
378: Guy Forget
377: Henri Leconte
341: Sebastien Grosjean
Simon recorded his 500th career win in front of his home fans at Roland Garros this year, a 7-5, 6-1, 7-6 (6) second-round victory over American Steve Johnson. He had just taken out a No. 18-ranked Pablo Carreno Busta in five sets in the first round.
“Ah, 500,” Simon told ATPTour.com that day.
“It’s a nice number that I managed to reach it. I would have survived if I didn’t, of course, but yeah, it’s one more achievement. To have 500 wins on the tour, I am quite happy.”
He was one of only 10 active men’s players with 500 or more wins in their career. Now that he’s retired, that club of 10 is now a club of nine: Nadal (1,066), Djokovic (1,023 going into Thursday), Murray (717), Gasquet (588), Marin Cilic (580), Fernando Verdasco (559), Stan Wawrinka (541), Monfils (525) and Feliciano Lopez (503).