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The clay court season is officially underway in Europe with some of the biggest names arriving to play in one of the oldest tournaments in tennis – Monte Carlo.
Despite the top eight seeds being given byes into the second round, Monday still featured some quality players and some interesting match-ups out of the thirteen matches scheduled for the day.
The match that had me most curious and interested to watch was actually first up on Court Rainier, the center court of Monter Carlo. It featured two up and coming stars, young German sensation Alexander Zverev against Russian Andrey Rublev, who had been gifted a wild card to the main draw.
Both players were 18 years old and were playing each other for the first time on the ATP Tour, however surely not the last time. Zverev was the more accomplished player out of the two so far in their very young careers, and he most certainly showed it through out the match.
His consistent and deep ground strokes were far too much for Rublev to handle, and dismissed him comfortably in exactly an hour, 6-1 6-3. Zverev clearly proving yet again that his is going to be one of – if not the best player out of his generation.
Court Rainier featured three more matches after the battle of the young guns – Gael Monfils made comfortable work of the big serving Gilles Muller of Luxemburg, 7-5 6-0.
In what was one of more of the surprising results of the day, Richard Gasquet thumped Nicholas Almagro 6-4 6-0. Almagro who has won eight ATP clay court titles over his career wasn’t even close to being on the same level of consistency as his French opponent.
Last up on centre court was the increasingly popular Milos Raonic who won easily enough against Italian wildcard Marco Cecchinato 6-3 7-5. Even though the clay courts are a little harder for big servers and big ground stroke players due to the slowness of the court, Raonic was still far too powerful for the Italian who mainly makes his trade on the Challenger level. He now has a disappointing record of 0 wins and 14 losses at the ATP level!
Over on Court Des Princes, the second main court of the Monte Carlo tournament, there were three singles matches, where we finally got a match the lasted for longer than two sets! Young 22-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem was made to work hard against Jan-Lennard Struff 1-6 6-3 6-4.
Reportedly Thiem had been feeling unwell coming into the match with a stomach virus, and it certainly looked that way as he struggled to keep the ball in play against the hard hitting Struff in the first set.
However Thiem who I believe will be a French Open champion one day in the future, found his range despite feeling unwell, and fought back and managed to grind out an impressive victory considering his circumstances.
The much improved Roberto Bautista Agut who has already won two titles this year, won a tightly contested match against fellow Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-4 7-6.
Bautista Agut, who was tied 4-4 in the overall head to head record against his fellow countryman, would have been extremely impressed and a little relieved to escape the match in straight sets, especially considering he was down a break of serve three times in the second set!
The other match on Court Des Princes featured two residents of Monte Carlo, Grigor Dimitrov and Filip Krajinovic. It was an easy match for Dimitrov on this occasion, coming out the victor 6-3 6-2.
Dimitrov who turns 25 in May has always had loads of potential, however has yet to win a huge title or make it past the quarter finals of a grand slam. As a player who has so much natural ability and has a similar game style to the legend Roger Federer, hopefully he can win a big tournament like this one soon.
Another match worth mentioning was played on one of the outside courts, Benoit Paire against Inigo Cervantes. Paire who seemingly can beat any one on his day, however who can also lose to anyone the very next day, decided he was in the mood for showcasing the most eventful match of the schedule.
Despite being a break up in the first set, Paire threw the first set away towards the tail end, losing four games in a row.
He managed to rally back in the second before winning a topsy-turvy third set where he came back from a match point down to win an exciting tie breaker, 8-6. The official score being 4-6 6-2 7-6.
The weather looked perfect for tennis on Monday in Monte Carlo and the courts were immaculate as always! Hopefully there are many more exciting matches to come.
Will Novak Djokovic continue his dominance or will Nadal manage to turn the tide and regain his role as king of the clay and make it nine titles in Monaco? Or will some else finally stand up and take down the championship? Only time will tell!
Other results of the day were:
Guillermo Garcia Lopez def Thomaz Bellucci 7-5 6-1
Lucas Pouille (W) def Nicholas 7-6 6-3
Pablo Carreno Busta def Stephane Robert (Q) 6-3 6-1
Aljaz Bedene def Lukas Rosol 6-2 6-3
Pierre-Hugues Herbert (Q) def Guido Pella 6-3 6-4
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