Aiming to become the third player to win the Monte-Carlo title at least three times in a row, the second seed awaits Nicolas Jarry or Alexei Popyrin.
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When Benjamin Bonzi was forced to withdraw from the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters on Tuesday due to a wrist injury, Stefanos Tsitsipas moved on to the third round. With punishing serves and forehands, the two-time defending champion was enjoying his return to the clay courts of Monaco, but Bonzi was unable to last past 22 minutes due to Tsitsipas’s 4-1 advantage on Court Rainier III. Aiming to become the third player to win the Monte-Carlo title at least three times in a row, the second seed awaits Nicolas Jarry or Alexei Popyrin, with the pair set to square off on Wednesday in the Principality.
“A great start out there. A 3-0 lead, I will always take it,” Tsitsipas said post-match. “Happy to be back on the terre bateau of Monte-Carlo. It’s a very unique location during the year and I’m happy this is the time of the year we get to play on these courts. It brings back very good memories. It’s very unfortunate what happened out there for my opponent. I wish him the best moving forward.”
After losing to Daniil Medvedev in the third round of the 2019 Monte-Carlo tournament, Tsitsipas’ victory on Tuesday extended his winning streak to 11 games. The World No. 3 has dropped to No. 5 trailing Casper Ruud and Daniil Medvedev. With his record now standing at 15-4 this season, Tsitsipas improved to 3-0 against Bonzi with the win. Due to his injury, the Frenchman was unable to compete against the Australian Open finalist for what might have been his first Top 10 victory.
On Tuesday at the Monte-Carlo Masters, Novak Djokovic successfully resumed play. The World No. 1 was in danger of dropping the opening set after a fierce challenge from World No. 198 Ivan Gakhov. However, Djokovic handled the pressure situations expertly to advance with a 7-6(5), 6-2 victory. Gakhov entered the qualifying field as the fourth alternate and made the most of the chance to get into the main draw and win his first ATP Tour match to move on to the second round. In contrast to Gakhov, who was playing in his third tour-level match, Djokovic was playing in his 1,254th, and that experience paid off in crucial situations.
“It was probably, if you can call it this way, an ugly tennis win for me today,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “I haven’t played my best, particularly in the first set. And I kind of expected that that was going to happen in a way with swirly conditions, a lot of wind today, changing directions. It’s different practising and then playing an official match on clay, [where] I guess no two bounces are the same. It’s always quite unpredictable what’s going to happen. But all in all, I’m just pleased with the way I held my nerves I think in the important moments and I managed to clinch the two-set win.”
