The Big Breakthroughs

It's been a very weird week for tennis, with some shocking upsets, some brilliant performances, and, ultimately, two champions whose victories made some really strong statements.

This is the Monte-Carlo champion 🏆

A brilliant week from @steftsitsipas 👏 #RolexMCMasters pic.twitter.com/CNPh7MAozJ

— ATP Tour (@atptour) April 18, 2021

Monte Carlo

I'll start where the stakes were highest, at the Rolex Masters in Monte Carlo, where my theory that the house always wins was proven spectacularly wrong when eleven-time champion Rafael Nadal lost to Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals. That result guaranteed we'd see a first-time Masters winner this week, and the final result showed we should be expecting event more.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, after all, has been putting together big results for so long it's hard to believe he's only 22. His first real breakout came three years ago when, just inside the top thirty, be beat Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem, and Novak Djokovic to make the final at the Rogers Cup. The next year he made his first Grand Slam semi and won the year-end championship in London, and he's been a staple in the top ten since.

And his performance this week was on point -- while he technically only faced one other seed on his way to the final, his opponents (Dubai champ Aslan Karatsev, giant-killer Dan Evans) were nevertheless formidable foes. And against Rublev for the title, the outcome was anything but certain -- the two had split their previous six meetings, with last year's breakout star most recently the victor in Rotterdam.

But Tsitsipas was clinical in Sunday's match, winning 86% of his first serve point, never allowing a break opportunity and converting all three of his. In just over an hour he had claimed the win and the title -- maybe not the biggest of his career, but certainly breaking the seal for what is sure to be a slew of more Masters titles. And with Roland Garros just about a month away, he might have made a real case that he's one to watch in Paris.

Charleston

Meanwhile in Charleston, we were also treated to a real breakthrough, and one that came with a little bit of redemption on the side.

Just last week Astra Sharma fell victim to one of the most bizarre cases of chair umpire mistakes we've seen -- after having a game she won wrongly awarded to her opponent, she largely broke down, losing her opening match in Bogotá in three sets. The loss particularly unfortunate, since she'd made the final there the last time the event was held in 2019.

But Sharma seemed to shake off her frustration by the time she came to South Carolina. In a field that was pretty wide open -- there was only one player in the top thirty in the draw -- the former college star, still ranked sub-100 on tour, was actually the more experienced player in her later matches. She upended fifteen-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova's breakthrough run in the quarters and then ended Bogotá champ Maria Camila Osorio's eight match win streak in the semis.

For the title, Sharma faced off against top seeded Ons Jabeur, herself going for her maiden title. But while the trailblazing Tunisian was able to avenge last week's loss to Danka Kovinic in the semis and build a set lead in the final, she wasn't able to finish off the task. Sharma forced a decider and took advantage of weak serving by her opponent to seal off the comeback and win her first tour title.

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The wins this week may seem to be of different orders of magnitude, but with the clay court season really getting in full swing now, they're both hugely important for those who pulled them off. And hopefully they're only a sign of what we have yet to see from these two talents -- and one step towards their even bigger wins down the road.

All Bets Are Off

Monte Carlo, obviously, is a gambling town, and like all gambling towns, there are a couple things we should know: 1) there are no sure bets, and 2) the house always wins. So we shouldn't be surprised by what we've seen so far at the first clay court Masters event of the season, but that doesn't make the results any less noteworthy.

Who saw that coming? 👀

Dan Evans beats the World No. 1 to make the last eight in Monte-Carlo!pic.twitter.com/rAbx4gvTVR

— ATP Tour (@atptour) April 15, 2021

I'll start with the big upset of the day, where Novak Djokovic, undefeated so far this year, took the court against the talented but unseeded workhorse Daniel Evans. While Nole's win streak was smaller than it's been at this point in previous seasons -- he skipped out on Miami because of COVID restrictions and we haven't seen him since he won that ninth Australian Open title -- he was still clearly the favorite here. He's, after all, got more weeks than anyone else atop the rankings, and with just one loss to a sub-thirty player over the last two years, few opponents have a shot at making any headway. His one-sided win over phenom Jannik Sinner in his opener further proved his dominance.

The odds didn't seem to bother Evans, though -- and they were tough odds. The thirty-year-old, who picked up the first title of his career at the Murray River Open to start the season, has been a little quiet lately -- he lost five of his six matches since then, including his opener at the Australian Open, and came to the Rolex Masters a shade off his career high ranking at #33 in the world. But he pulled of a nice win over Miami champ Hubert Hurkacz in the second round to set up a showdown with the top seed, and he was unintimidated by his opponent. He broke Nole's usually strong serve five times and kept him to under sixty percent on his first attempts. It was a long two-setter, no doubt -- over two hours at the end -- but one where the underdog didn't flinch and came away with the fourth top ten win of his career, his first ever over a world #1.

The surprises, though, didn't only come as upsets. David Goffin, who frankly stunned me with a title in Montpellier in February, went back to form right after that, winning just two matches at four events, most recently losing to world #104 James Duckworth in his Miami opener. And while his own ranking has been somewhat shielded by COVID-related rules, he hadn't beaten a top ten player in over a year. But he seems to have found his footing again this week -- after a tighted first round against former U.S. Open champ Marin Cilic, he took out former French Open semifinalist and earlier today scored an important win over fifth seed Alexander Zverev in straights sets. With a quarterfinal match now against Evans instead of Djokovic, we'll get to see if he can put his higher on-paper ranking to work.

And Goffin's not the only recently-struggling star to right his course in Monte Carlo. Fabio Fognini, who I was stunned to learn is technically the defending champion here, having beaten Zverev and Rafael Nadal on his way to the 2019 title, the last time the event was played, has been similarly spotty over the last twelve months, winning just one match in 2020 after the Australian Open, pulling off a couple nice wins at this year's ATP Cup, and then losing his last three matches to players ranked outside the top sixty. But he's turning things around this week -- he may not have played another seed yet, but he's gotten three straight-set wins so far, today over a tough Filip Krajinovic in under ninety minutes. He'll face a bigger test next against Casper Ruud, who's already beaten Diego Schwartzman and Marbella champ Pablo Carreño Busta, but perhaps there's something about this dirt that can really help Fognini shine.

Of course, as I mentioned, there are two rules of every gambling mecca, and if anyone can call the Monte Carlo Masters home, it's Rafael Nadal. He has, after all, won a record eleven titles here, eight of them in a row, and he's only been more prolific at one other event. Like with Djokovic, we haven't seen much of Rafa this year -- he hadn't played since losing in the Aussie quarters due to a back injury and his sparse schedule has forced him to cede his spot at #2 in the rankings.

He could get it back, though, if he makes the final this weekend, and so far, he's looking on point to do just that. He's lost just five games in his last two matches, needing less than an hour to dispatch one-time world #3 Grigor Dimitrov earlier today. To make the semis, he'll have to get past red-hot Andrey Rublev, and while I'm a little nervous about that, Nadal has won both of their previous meetings and Rublev has proven himself not-so-indestructable of late. Still, it could be a close one, and no matter how stacked the odds are, there's always the chance the game gets turned on its head.

But maybe, just maybe, we're in for a real big jackpot.

A Few Tense Moments

This was not shaping up to be a good day for the favorites on Court Central in Monte Carlo.

With many of the top seeds getting their first taste of this season's clay court action, it's understandable that a few faltered a bit at the outset. And with some of the early action today, fans may have wondered if there was a bit of a curse on the Masters' main stage.

It started with defending champion Stan Wawrinka's third round match. The seventh seed has lost a little of the momentum he'd gained last year -- despite picking up titles in Chennai and Rotterdam, he's also notched losses to world #59 Sergiy Stakhovsky and triple-digit ranked Robin Haase this season. This week he opened with a solid win over clay specialist Juan Monaco, but had a tougher time today against also-struggling Grigor Dimitrov -- the big-hitter hasn't won more than one match at any event since the Australian Open. But the Bulgarian was back on his game today -- in less than an hour, he kept Wawrinka under fifty percent on serve, saved all six break points he faced and allowed his opponent just three games. It was the Swiss's earliest exit in Monte Carlo since 2010, but it was far from the biggest upset of the day.

That came shortly after when second seed Roger Federer took the court against recent nemesis Gael Monfils. The Frenchman, who came oh-so-close to beating the legend last year in New York, regrouped for an important win in the Davis Cup final, but has been mostly silent this year. He made a loud statement on Thursday, though -- taking advantage of a spate of errors from the four-time finalist, Monfils got the early lead in the first set and held on in the tiebreak for the second. The win keeps Roger waiting at least a year longer for one of the few Masters titles that continues to elude him and further widened the hole in the bottom half of the men's draw. Monfils will face off against Dimitrov next, and while neither are the highest ranked player still alive -- that honor goes to fourth seed Milos Raonic -- both made pretty good cases for themselves to sneak even further through the bracket.

Given what had happened on center court already today, you couldn't help but think even eight-time champion Rafael Nadal might be vulnerable. The undisputed King of Clay has had his own issues this year, losing a nail-biter to Fabio Fognini in the Rio semis and then falling to compatriot Fernando Verdasco early in Miami. And, of course, let's not forget that stunning upset at the hands of Michael Berrer in Doha. But this court is where he's arguably most at home, and many considered it his opportunity to turn a disappointing season back around. But even he was pushed today -- after surviving a tight tiebreak in his opening set against a recently resurgent John Isner, he dropped serve in the second and was forced into a decider. Ultimately Nadal was able to clinch the only break in the third set, securing the win after more than two hours of play -- but with more than a few scares, he'll have to raise his game the next time he's on court if he wants to return to the throne in Monte Carlo.

The only former champ to skate by on Thursday was Novak Djokovic. The man who dethroned Rafa in 2013 is riding quite a win streak -- he's won thirteen straight matches and crowns at the last three Masters he's played. The top seed in Monte Carlo, Nole lost just five games in his opener against Albert Ramos and today needed just fifty-six minutes to dispatch Casablanca semifinalist Andreas Haider-Maurer. Next up he faces U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic, back in action after his own injury absence -- and with a 14-0 record against the Croat, you have to like his chances to keep his momentum going. Of course, just because the gremlins that seemed to haunt today's early matches seem to have cleared out in the afternoon, doesn't mean they won't be back in the next few days. And with so many surprises already this week there's no telling how many more are still in store.

A Changing of the Guard

Well I'm not sure anyone was expecting the results we got at this weekend's tournaments. With a Master summarily dethroned and a newbie finally seeing through her potential, the two champions crowned on Sunday might not have been the ones we'd expected, but they could be a signal of just how much things have changed.

With many of the ladies on Tour occupied with Fed Cup action this weekend, the draw in Kuala Lumpur was a little sparse. Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova, the only top-forty player in the field, should have been the clear favorite, and she began her campaign like she was on a mission. She struggled a bit in later rounds, though, coming back against Zarina Diyas and Karolina Pliskova, but eventually reached the final, her third of the year.

Meanwhile in the other half of the draw, wide open with the four seeds averaging a #83 ranking, young Donna Vekic seemed to turn around her luck a bit. The seventeen year old who'd reached the final in Birmingham in 2013 and in Tashkent the year before, had lost her first four matches of the season and, despite causing a nice upset of Svetlana Kuznetsova in Miami, nevertheless lost easily a round later. She was granted the seventh seed in Malaysia, but was tested from the start and dropped opening sets to her first two opponents. In the topsy-turvy final she was trailing too, down a set and 4-5 before rattling off seven straight games for a 4-0 lead in the decider.

But things are never easy on the ladies' Tour, and after missing three match points, the Croat found herself in a tiebreak for the trophy. Ultimately she was able to hold tougher, eking out the match in a nearly three-hour battle, scoring just one more point than her opponent, but decidedly an important one. The win marked Vekic's first career win over a top-ten player and made her the youngest champion in almost seven years*, quite a milestone for the rising star. Now up at #65 in the world and having finally followed up one win with another, she could prove to be quite a factor in the big events in the months to come. She's certainly still in the early stages of her career, but she might just be ready to take the reins.

There was a little more experience on the court in Monte Carlo, and the stakes were understandably higher at the first Masters event of the clay court season. Some of the favorites bowed out early -- Mikhail Youzhny dropped his opener to Andreas Seppi while fifth seed Tomas Berdych succumbed to red-hot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in his third round. But the surprise exit of eight-time champion Rafael Nadal in the quarters really tilted the apple cart, and the subsequent semifinal loss of injury-addled Novak Djokovic, the first man to beat Rafa in Morocco since 2003, only added to tumult.

Ultimately two Swiss stars were left standing -- Roger Federer, three times a loser to Nadal in the final here, and recently baptized Stanislas Wawrinka, playing in just the third Masters 1000 final of his career. It was the pair's fifteenth meeting, and while the less-experienced Wawrinka held the slightly higher ranking -- #3 versus #4 -- he'd won only one of their previous matches, on these courts actually, but way back in 2009. He started out in a deficit this time too, losing the first set in Roger's attempt to win his twenty-second Masters crown, but came back with a vengeance, taking a tiebreak to force a third and closing out the match in just over two hours.

It was Wawrinka's third title of the year, making 2014 his most prolific season to date, and maybe more importantly cements his standing as one of the sport's top players. After years of hanging out in the second tier, he's somehow managed a 6-0 record against top ten players this year, and is now firmly atop the leaderboard in the race to London. He may have struggled a bit after his breakthrough in Melbourne -- he fell to Alexandr Dolgopolov and Kevin Anderson during the spring Masters season -- but with his triumph in Monte Carlo, he's shown he can up his game against the very best. And with bigger tournaments on the horizon, he might just be able to go on a run no one saw coming.

To varying degrees, both of this weekend's champions proved they can deliver when it counts, and if they can keep their momentum going over the next few weeks and months, there's really no telling what they can accomplish. Of course Wawrinka has the experience to really take it to the big guys, while Vekic, still younger than so many in the field, is still just getting her footing. But both have the talent to cause some big surprises. And at a time of year when anything can happen, there may be no better chance for them to shine.

Vania King was about two months younger when she won in Bangkok in 2006.

The End of an Era

It's a little difficult to remember what life was like back when Rafael Nadal wasn't champion at Monte Carlo. But after this week's action at the first clay court Masters event of the season, we've gone back to exactly that world.

It was always going to be a tough task for the eight-time champion -- having missed seven months of action since Wimbledon last year, there was a lot of pressure on him to defend the boatload of points he'd accumulated at this time last year. But he was 17-1 since his return at Viña del Mar, had accumulated three titles already, including one which saw him defeat three top ten players in a row, and despite a couple tests during the week, eventually reached his ninth straight final in Monaco.

Meanwhile, world #1 Novak Djokovic faced challenges as well on his way to a middling-by-comparison third Monte Carlo championship -- an ankle injury threatened to keep him out of the event entirely, and he lost opening sets to both Mikhail Youzhny and Juan Monaco -- but he eventually got his game together in the later rounds.

And his renewed strength was apparent from the get-go in Sunday's rain-delayed final. He started off winning five straight games off Rafa, threatening to deliver the Spanish star his first bagel set on the dirt since Hamburg in 2007. Nadal tried to stage a bit of a comeback, capitalizing on Nole's errors to get one break back, but eventually dropped serve himself again and lost the set. Momentum seemed to shift in the second set though -- Nadal got a break early, and though he lost it soon after, he was able to eventually earn the right to serve out the set. But Djokovic had come with a mission -- with his shots consistently finding their marks and his errors getting cleaned up, he broke back for a tiebreak which he dominated from the first serve.

Nole's win harkens back to his stellar 2011 season when he stunned Nadal in four straight Masters finals, two on Rafa's favorite surface. Circumstances are different of course -- the Serb isn't running quite the streak he was then, and Nadal is still trying to get his groove back. But it sure looks like we're in for a few exciting weeks coming up. Now the question is, of course, whether Novak will be able to do it best-of-five.

After all, if he's ever going to complete the not-so-elusive (these days) Grand Slam, this could be his best shot to do it.

No Mercy, or "This is My House"

I have to admit, I was a little nervous before Sunday's Monte Carlo final.

Sure, seven-time defending champion Rafael Nadal hadn't lost here since 2003. Yes, he hadn't dropped a set all week and only lost serve twice going into the championship match. And, admittedly, he had a much easier time in his semifinal -- against France's Gilles Simon, he needed less than two hours to dispatch his opponent. Novak Djokovic, on the other hand, spent almost three hours on court Saturday and needed to come back from a set down in two matches this week.

But that didn't necessarily mean anything. Twice last year, in both Rome and Madrid where Nadal had been previously dominant, Djokovic had survived tough semis and each time pulled out a straight set win over the then-champion. He'd also pulled off a handful of other wins over the former world #1 in the past sixteen months, each when a trophy was at stake, five times where the Spaniard was defending the crown. He had beaten his rival on every surface, had narrowed the gap in the pair's head-to-head to a tight 14-16 and had taken over his top ranking. It was quite a demoralizing stretch for Nadal.

Things went a little differently today in Monaco. Rafa, who'd won forty-one straight matches in Monte Carlo coming into the final is clearly more comfortable than anyone else on this surface. He drew first blood against Nole in the fifth game of the match and didn't face a break point in the opening set. He ran off to a 4-0 lead in the second before Djokovic was able to get on the board, finally making a dent on Nadal's serve and earning one break back. But the tide didn't turn for long -- Rafa broke back immediately and held his opponent to just four points on serve the entire set -- all on second attempts. After less than ninety minutes, the real prince of Monaco fired off an ace and sealed in his record eighth title in Monte Carlo -- the most any player has ever won at a single Masters event, and the longest trophy streak at any men's tournament in tennis history.

The win was more significant than even that, though. It reminded Nadal he has what it takes to beat the top player in the sport again, and as he enters what's traditionally the best part of his season he'll need that confidence to climb back to the top. But even beyond that, the vindication proves that, this year at least, no one player is untouchable. And that means the rest of the year is about to get very interesting.

The Year Was 2004...

It's hard to remember a time before Rafael Nadal was champion of the Monte Carlo Masters -- way back when, things were quite different.

In April 2004 then-clay court powerhouse Guillermo Coria had taken the title. Ranked #4 in the world at the time, the Argentine went on to the final in Hamburg and a runner-up trophy at Roland Garros, where unseeded Gaston Gaudio came back from two sets down to capture his first and only Grand Slam crown. Since then it's been all about Rafa.

It's been such a long time since we've thought of anyone else but Nadal as ace of this base. And so much has changed in the interim that things that were once commonplace are now even harder to imagine.

Eight years ago Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was just prepping his career-changing keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, Mitt Romney was in his second year as Massachusetts governor. John Edwards was in the running to be Vice President, Newt Gingrich was already on his third wife and at least his second affair. Al Franken was best-known as a writer for SNL, Sarah Palin as the former Mayor of Wasilla.

Tony Blair was still Prime Minister of Britain, Angela Merkel was not yet Chancellor of Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy was just France's finance minister -- not a supermodel's husband. Kim Jong-Il was alive. So was Osama Bin Laden. And Saddam Hussein.

Mark Zuckerberg was an unknown undergrad who had just launched theFacebook at Harvard, the only things that tweeted were birds -- and they were very seldom angry. Google wasn't yet a public company, and Apple's stock was trading under $28 a share.

Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual were still in business -- and making big bucks. The U.S. unemployment rate was just 5.6%, down from recent highs above a staggering 6%. No one outside Wall Street knew what a "subprime" loan was. Or had an opinion on Goldman Sachs. Or spent any time in Zucotti Park.

Tsunami was an SAT vocabulary word, Katrina was just a girl's name, Pluto was still a planet.

Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve and Ronald Reagan were all still with us. Arrested Development was wrapping up its first season, Friends was gearing up for its series finale. The last installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was Best Picture, Denzel Washington's Man on Fire was tops at the box office. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez had just split, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston hadn't yet. Mel Gibson was only showing signs of his insanity, Robert Downey Jr. was just climbing out of his.

The New England Patriots had won their third and (so far) last Super Bowl, but all anyone cared about was Janet Jackson's half-time show. The Red Sox were at the tail end of an eighty-five year World Series drought. Michael Phelps hadn't made his Olympic debut, Jeremy Lin hadn't applied to college.

Seventeen-year-old Rafael Nadal was ranked #37 in the world.

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Tomorrow, having beaten Gilles Simon in this afternoon's semi, Rafa will play in his eighth Monte Carlo championship match, hoping to extend his run in Monaco to forty-two straight wins*. There he'll face world #1 Novak Djokovic who, of course, has defeated the Spaniard in their last seven meetings, all in finals. And while victories on hard courts or grass might be explicable, Nole's triumphs in Rome and Madrid last year show that no streak is safe. Nadal is going to have to be at the top of his game in order to retain the title he's owned for almost his entire career.

And whether or not you're excited by the possibility of a world where Rafa no longer dominates the clay, you can't deny that tomorrow's result could make this season look very different from here on out. And the implications might mean the world for the two men who take the court Sunday.

* Rafa's only loss in Monte Carlo came in the 2003 third round, when he was ranked #109 in the world.

Lucky #7

There are not a lot of athletes, or any type of sports franchise for that matter, that can claim seven-year winning streaks at the highest level of play. But earlier today Rafael Nadal's historic run in Monte Carlo earned him a record seventh trophy at the Rolex Masters and kept him undefeated at the event since 2003.



This year's path to the finals was not without drama. After progressing easily though the early rounds, Nadal suffered a set's worth of distraction in the semis against Andy Murray. The pair traded breaks early in the match, but Rafa eventually got the lead before his level of play began to slump. His first serve percentage dropped and he missed several of the dramatic shots that usually come so easily for him. But the loss of the second set served to incite his drive and everything seemed to improve in the decider. Nadal rushed off to a 4-0 lead before finally closing out the match in three hours.

The unexpected struggle must have prepared Rafa well for the finals, where he met countryman David Ferrer playing only his second Masters championship match. Again the two traded service games early in the first set before Nadal took control and the lead, and after a similar start to the second set, he secured the decisive break late in the match to claim the title yet again.



Monte Carlo has been an important stepping stone for Rafa for years -- his first crown in 2005 set off a career that now includes nine Majors, nineteen Masters, Olympic gold and nearly two years ranked at the top spot in the sport. And while all the talk has centered around Novak Djokovic's success this year, this latest prize in Monaco reminds us all that Rafael Nadal is the only man to beat on clay. As we head into what's so often the most prolific part of his year, I expect to see no immediate signs of slowdown in his game.

And the way he's been playing, I wouldn't be surprised to see some much larger numbers become lucky for him as well.

Where Things Get Serious

While last week served as a nice amuse bouche for the clay court season, the men are really hunkering down for the spring this week in Monte Carlo, the first Masters 1000 event on the surface. Most of the big guns are out to make a statement, but with year-to-date #1 Novak Djokovic and two-time French Open finalist Robin Soderling both withdrawing due to injury, the pressure is on to see who fires the first shot.

Six-time defending champion Rafael Nadal will be looking to claim his first title of the year and is the on-paper and sentimental favorite here again. I'm not worried that he hasn't yet broken through in 2011 -- the Monte Carlo trophy kicked off his most prolific years in '10 and '08, so he could very well be saving his best stuff. But all good things have to end eventually, and if there are any chinks in the armor, we might see a new champion break through.

World #3 Roger Federer will certainly try to take his crack at that -- the Grand Slam record holder has somewhat surprisingly never won a title here, coming in second to Nadal three years in a row. It's hard to say a year which already includes a title in Doha and no event exits earlier than a semi is unsuccessful, but for a champion like Fed, it's not the season he's used to. We know he can play on clay, and his opening round drubbing of Philipp Kohlschreiber on Tuesday proves he's still hungry.

But if any of the super-elite needs to rethink his strategy, it has to be Andy Murray who, as has been repeatedly noted, hasn't won a match since his devastating Australian Open championship rout. Clay is by far his worst surface -- he's barely batting 0.500 on the dirt -- and with early round match-ups against specialists like Radek Stepanek and either Albert Montanes or Gilles Simon in the following round, he might not be able to improve his record much in Monaco.

Rounding out the top four seeds in Monte Carlo is journeyman David Ferrer, a seasoned clay-court player who's never really broken through on the big stage. But he made the semis here last year and went one better in Rome, so he seems to be gaining traction. Already this year he's won two titles, more than anyone else seeded above him, and had the benefit of momentum on his side. If he can get through early challenges from countryman Feliciano Lopez and young gun Milos Raonic, who's already made the third round, he could be a force to reckon with this week.

Sure there's plenty of opportunity for new talent to make their own run in Monte Carlo, but with all else equal you gotta put your money on the favorites. Some, of course, have better chances than others, but with just a few weeks left before we hit the red clay of Roland Garros, now's as good a time as any to get out of the starting blocks.

Just Like Old Times

It's nice to see things back to normal.

While there were, of course, some upsets along the way, the semifinals at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters brought together four men with some of the best clay court results out there: top-seeded Novak Djokovic who has four titles on the surface including the 2008 Rome Masters, five-time and defending champRafael Nadal, who'd dropped only a handful of games in his first three matches here, Fernando Verdasco with titles in Umag and Valencia, and David Ferrer who has an impressive 162-81 record on the dirt. Three Spaniards and a Serb, all of whom were pretty familiar with each other.



Rafa and Ferrer took the court first, two men whose history runs deep. Not surprisingly, the Davis Cup teammates have met twelve times over the past six years, with Rafa holding a 9-3 edge. The last time Ferrer beat him was at the 2007 Tennis Masters Cup, but since then Nadal hadn't dropped even a set.

In Monte Carlo, I suppose there were reasons to believe the older Ferrer might have a chance -- he'd been stellar in his matches up to the semis, tested slightly by Ivan Ljubicic and Philipp Kohlschreiber, but otherwise looking on point. And if the injuries that have plagued Nadal over the past twelve months resurfaced, David could hold out hope. But this week, Rafa only dropped two games total in his first two matches. He traded a few breaks with Juan Carlos Ferrero in a rain-delayed quarter, but looked completely comfortable as he knocked off one player after another.

On Saturday Ferrer had a chance to break early, but instead crumbled in the first set. After just over half an hour, Nadal had broken his opponent twice and taken the first set. The second was a bit closer as three successive games that went to the receiver kept things fairly even. But finally Rafa pulled ahead and was able to save one more break opportunity to reach his forty-ninth career final and his second of the year.

Shortly after that match, Nole and Verdasco took the court with the Serb holding a 5-2 record over the sixth seed in Monaco. Djokovic, playing in his first Masters as a #1 seed, had lived up to his ranking all week, getting past Stanislas Wawrinka, last week's champ in Casablanca, and comeback story David Nalbandian fairly easily. Verdasco had been challenged a bit more, dropping sets to both Miami giant-killer Tomas Berdych and this week's Cinderella story Albert Montanes.

But it was a tumultuous couple of weeks for Novak -- he'd suffered a few upsets in Indian Wells and Miami, battled allergies, and had just announced that he'd split from coach Todd Martin. And Verdasco was able to take advantage of that. It had been four years since he was able to notch a "W" over last year's runner-up, but after a sloppy start to the match, he allowed the world #2 only four games -- the second fewest Novak has won in his career.

So that sets up the tenth career meeting for Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco, and their third since that epic semifinal in Australia in '09. And somewhat surprisingly, since that day last January, Fernando hasn't been able to take one set from Rafa. I have a feeling it will be hard for him to do so on Sunday either -- after all, Monte Carlo is Nadal's second home -- after Roland Garros. And as the former #1 tries to win his first title in almost a year, he's not only playing some of his best tennis, but he's looking hungrier than I've ever seen him.

And I for one can't wait to see him back in the winner's circle!

Not Another Rematch

For the past three years those with tickets to the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters' final have seen basically the same match -- Rafael Nadal has battled Roger Federer for the first big title of the clay-court season every year since 2006, and each time he walked away with the championship.

In those three losses Roger has only taken one set from the King of Clay. And when he took a wild card entry to this year's Masters -- he originally was going to sit out but eventually decided it was too important to miss -- the newly-married, soon-to-be-father was probably hoping to exact revenge.

It didn't exactly happen that way.

Even though his home-life has been thriving, it's been a tough spring for the former #1 tennis player -- after he lost in the finals to Nadal, he suffered a loss in the semis to Andy Murray at Indian Wells and another defeat at the hands of Novak Djokovic in Miami.



It was the first time I remember ever seeing Federer lose his temper or show any signs of frustration in a match. And while he may have kept his cool today, his anxiety must've been running high as he dropped in straight sets to countryman Stanislas Wawrinka in the third round in Morocco.



So if Nadal does in fact make it to his fifth straight final in Monte Carlo, he won't be seeing his arch-nemesis there. Novak is the highest of the remaining seeds, but I have a feeling we could see a rematch of the Melbourne semis. Fernando Verdasco, who plays Nole in the quarters, has won his two career titles on clay and could be making a play for his next trophy.

And if it wasn't already clear it's obvious now that this year's race for men's elite is wide open.