Free-spirit Monfils buoyed by Beyonce and the Bronx

He is the French free spirit with a love of the Bronx, Beyonce and drinking Coke mid-match whose complicated relationship with tennis and himself has got New Yorkers eating out of his hands.

In tennis' tightly-controlled, sometimes colorless world, Gael Monfils is happy to be the eccentric, untamed talent who hits breathtaking, pinpoint volleys one moment and tanks a point with a shrug of his Parisian shoulders the next.

He even had the 20,000-strong Arthur Ashe Stadium court singing Happy Birthday to him on Monday even though he was nowhere to be seen.