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Tennis player Gaël Monfils spotted wearing F.P. Journe

Gaël Monfils has built a reputation as one of professional tennis's most discerning watch collectors, and this wrist shot confirms he plays at the very top of the horological game. On his wrist sits an F.P. Journe Tourbillon Souverain Vertical in rose gold — one of the most technically complex and philosophically coherent wristwatches ever produced by the Geneva atelier founded in 1999 by François-Paul Journe.

The Tourbillon Souverain Vertical — often abbreviated TSV — debuted as a logical evolution of Journe's original Tourbillon Souverain, itself a landmark piece that helped establish the brand's reputation for functional innovation over decorative excess. The defining feature is a vertically mounted tourbillon cage positioned at approximately 9 o'clock on the guilloché gold dial, visible in full three-dimensional glory through an open aperture. Crucially, the tourbillon is coupled to a remontoir d'égalité — a constant-force mechanism that rewinds a small intermediary spring every six seconds, ensuring the escapement receives perfectly regulated impulses regardless of the mainspring's declining tension curve. The dead-seconds display at 6 o'clock ticks in precise one-second jumps, a direct expression of that six-second remontoir cycle.

The dial architecture is immediately recognizable: the large subsidiary seconds at lower center, the jumping-seconds indication, the off-centered hours-and-minutes chapter ring at 3 o'clock with Arabic numerals on a silver opaline sub-dial, and the characteristic engraved text 'Tourbillon Remontoir d'Egalité Seconde Morte' arcing across the lower dial — a full technical description worn openly on the face. The rose gold case runs 42mm, and the movement, caliber 1403, is constructed on Journe's signature 18-karat gold movement plate.

For collectors, the TSV occupies a singular position: it is not a tourbillon deployed for marketing purposes, but one integrated into a genuine constant-force system that meaningfully improves timekeeping. Production numbers are extremely limited, making secondary-market availability rare and pricing volatile.

Monfils, ranked among the ATP's all-time entertainers, has previously been spotted in Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, and other F.P. Journe references. This sighting, paired with a black-diamond-set silver bracelet, underscores his willingness to wear serious horology without ceremony.