France's Gael Monfils throws his shirt into the crowd after defeating Spain's David Ferrer during their quarter-final at the French Open on Wednesday. - AP

PARIS (AP):

ONLY ONE of the men in the French Open semi-finals celebrated a victory this week with a dance move popularised by US rapper Soulja Boy's hit song Crank Dat.

Only one showed up at a news conference wearing a Miami Hurricanes football jersey.

And only one likened his next match to the NBA finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, although he was sure to clarify: "It's not Game Seven".

Surprising member

An American in Paris, perchance? No, they're all long gone. This is a Frenchman, 21-year-old Gael Monfils, who happens to have trained in Florida, and he is the most surprising member of a Roland Garros final four that also includes Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Monfils plays Federer today, and Nadal takes on Djokovic, with berths in Sunday's championship match at stake. Monfils is the first man from France to reach the semi-finals since 2001, and, not surprisingly, the locals are quite excited.

The front page of yesterday's L'Equipe newspaper, a sports daily, did not contain a single article. Instead, there was an all-capital-letters headline, 'La Gloire de Monfils' ("The Glory of Monfils") above a large colour photo of the player.

He certainly is an outsider among the remaining quartet. Consider: Federer is ranked number one, Nadal is number two, and Djokovic is number three. Monfils, meanwhile, is number 59, the lowest-ranked men's semi-finalist at Roland Garros since Andrei Medvedev at No. 100 in 1999.

There's also this: Federer extended his own record by reaching a 16th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal. Djokovic is only the fourth man in the 40-year Open era - Federer, Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker are the others - to get to a fifth straight Slam semi-final. Nadal has reached this stage at four of the past five majors.

Without a Grand Slam

And Monfils? This is his first trip beyond the fourth round at any of tennis' four most important tournaments.

Which means, of course, that he also is the only one of the four men without a Grand Slam title. Federer owns 12, two shy of Pete Sampras' career record, and the French Open is the only Slam he has not won.

Nadal is trying to become the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1978-81 to win four French Open titles in a row. Djokovic won the Australian Open in January.

"I've not reached my objective," Monfils said. "I'm very happy I'll play a semi-final on the central court, but this is not my last objective."

Asked after upsetting number five David Ferrer in the quarter-finals whether his goal is to win the tournament, Monfils replied: "Well, the first objective is to beat the number one player in the world, and we'll see about the rest later."

Greatness has been predicted for Monfils for quite some time. In 2004, he nearly completed a junior Grand Slam, winning the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon boys titles that year. His progress has been slowed by a long litany of injuries, however, including a bad knee that kept him off the tour this season until March.