The point after the first round of the Masters 1000 in Monaco.
Stefanos Tsitsipas, double winner of the tournament (2021, 2022) was satisfied with his entry into contention on Monday in Monte-Carlo, where Carlos Alcaraz again seemed very diminished two days before his first match. The Spaniard appeared on Sunday during his training with his right forearm wrapped in a bandage that he still wore on Monday, and no information has since filtered out on the nature of his injury. And like the day before, on Monday he reduced his training to a minimum, playing very few forehands and none with power, visibly still embarrassed.
Faced with his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero who threw him balls from a basket without the slightest exchange, Alcaraz did not seem to have any problem on the backhand side. But on the forehand, the rare times he hit the balls, he did it with a slice. He didn’t attempt a single shot from that side, covering the ball to give it power. And even so, whether from the baseline or near the net after dropshot forward runs, his forehands more often than not failed in the net, as if he couldn’t hold his racket properly at the moment of impact, although of very low intensity. The world No.3, who has never won a single match in Monte-Carlo, ended the session after a little over an hour, not without taking a few glances at the court just outside side on which Novak Djokovic had been hitting for half an hour.
Djokovic mardi
Exempt from the first round, Alcaraz must only enter the fray on Wednesday, against the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (36th). Djokovic will begin in the second round on Tuesday, against the Russian Roman Safiullin (41st). The Serb, winner of the tournament in 2013 and 2015, has not advanced beyond the quarter-finals since.
Tsitsipas, for his part, had to go through a first round, for the first time since 2018 (he then went through qualifying). Former world No.3, this year he is playing the tournament as 12th in the world and seeded No.12, while only the top eight are exempt from the first round. But the Greek succeeded perfectly in his warm-up round, especially as he benefited from the abandonment of his opponent Laslo Djere (34th) in the middle of the second set. The 25-year-old Greek was leading 6-3, 3-2 when Djere, suffering from pain in his right arm, threw in the towel after 1h02 of the match.
“I am happy with my game at the start of the tournament, it bodes well. I hope to continue like this”commented Tsitsipas who had fallen in the quarterfinals last year. “I am aware this year that I have to come to the net a little more than last year and not wait so much, stuck, behind the baseline to make the rally last too long”, he added. Tsitsipas, who won his two biggest titles on the clay court of the Riviera – with the end-of-year Masters in 2019 -, will face the Chilean Nicolas Jarry (21st) or the Argentinian Tomas Etcheverry (31st) for a place in 8th of final.
Moutet at the hatch
On the French side, big firsts for Ugo Humbert and Arthur Fils (36th) despite, for the latter, an almost last minute change of opponent. For his very first match in Monte-Carlo, he should have faced his compatriot Adrian Mannarino (20th), but the latter, suffering from gastroenteritis, withdrew in the morning. His German replacement, Yannick Hanfmann (drafted from qualifying), only lasted 62 minutes against Fils before losing 6-0, 6-2. “I had to play a left-hander who plays flat and I ended up with a right-hander who did the complete opposite…”, underlined the 19-year-old Frenchman. His next opponent will be the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (24th) before possibly facing Djokovic in the round of 16.
Humbert had already played the tournament three times, without ever passing the first round. It is now done after his 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory at the expense of the Argentinian Federico Coria (89th). On the other hand, Corentin Moutet (99th) who had calmly passed the two rounds of qualifying, was unable to make it happen. He lost 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 against the Australian Alexei Popyrin (46th) but nevertheless had a good operation in Monte-Carlo since he left assured of entering the table main of Roland-Garros.
