Injury-hit Monfils calls time on season

PARIS (AFP) –

France’s Gael Monfils, pictured in September 2012, who has been plagued by a knee injury for large parts of 2012, will not play again this year, his coach told AFP on Thursday.

France’s Gael Monfils, who has been plagued by a knee injury for large parts of 2012, will not play again this year, his coach told AFP on Thursday.

The former world number seven has seen his ranking slip to 47 after missing four months of the season with a right knee problem, an absence which included the French Open, Wimbledon, Olympics and the US Open.

He returned in September, making the semi-finals in Metz before pulling out of the Asian ATP swing and losing in the first round in Stockholm this week to Sweden’s Patrik Rosenholm, the world 436.

“He doesn’t have a problem with his knee but we decided there was no point in playing the rest of the year. We have already turned our attention to 2013,” said Monfils’s coach Patrick Chamagne.