Monte Carlo 2025

Monte Carlo, with the glitz, glam, and many fancy hats, is one of the most unique tournaments to watch on the ATP Tour. It is a small event by scale compared to other Masters 1000 tournaments, only a round of 64, compared to the typical round of 128s. The seaside outdoor stadium makes for excellent TV. The tournament had just over 150,000 spectators for the week, peanuts compared to bigger 1000 events like Indian Wells and Miami. In the final this week, we had two young studs facing off. It was the first time since the Masters events started in 1990 that an Italian faced a Spaniard in the final, with Lorenzo Musetti taking on world number 3 Carlos Alcaraz. Musetti was coming off of an extremely hard fought win against Australian Alex De Minaur, who had only lost four games in his previous two matches combined. Alcaraz, on the other side of the net, fought his way to the final against Davidovich Fokina of Spain. Now, let’s break down what happened.

Alcaraz vs. Musetti Recap:

The start of this final was moved up nearly three hours due to the threat of weather later in the day, and you could tell at the start of this match how cold and wet the conditions were. When playing in this type of conditions, the ball really slows down, and it makes it incredibly hard to generate pace. Couple that with the already slow and gritty conditions of the Monte Carlo clay courts, and we were set up here for a grinding final where both players would have to earn every single point.

Alcaraz secured a break in his very first return game, and I (along with I am sure many of you) thought that Carlos was going to take this set easily. On break point, he combined a Rafa like “moonball” return with an absolute laser forehand, blisteringly flat down the line to pass Musetti. He clearly took that return out of his idol Rafa’s playbook, but that flat down the line forehand was a shot we rarely saw from Nadal. Similar to King Nadal, one of the biggest reasons why Alcaraz has shown so much success early on in his career is his movement. However, counter to Nadal, his largest drawback is his tendency to make unforced errors that seem to stack up in bunches. You could see that drawback creeping in during the second game of the first set for Carlos.

The errors continued for Alcaraz throughout the first set, and you could tell his rhythm was slightly off. Musetti was playing top notch tennis during the opening set, his heavy groundstrokes giving Alcaraz a ton of trouble. Musetti has an excellent kick serve, and Carlos was struggling to generate pace, because he was playing incredibly far back off returns. This allowed Musetti to dictate points well off his serve. Musetti took a 4-1 lead in the first, and did not look back, taking the first set 6-3. Sitting with my morning coffee, I was wondering if this style of play would continue, or if Carlos would switch it up and find his footing in this match.

Boy, did Carlos find his footing in the second. He found magic. The Carlos Alcaraz we all know came to play. When he is struggling, he really struggles. However, when Alcaraz finds his game, there are very few players on earth (if any) that can match him. No matter the surface that he plays on, hard court, grass, clay, or on the moon, Alcaraz’s ability to create pace off the ground is unrivaled by anyone. Combine this with his movement on this surface, and besting him is near impossible. The second and third set in this final was a blood bath. Alcaraz started to be more aggressive, playing closer to the baseline and using that aforementioned power off the ground to dictate points, and Musetti did not have an answer. The heavy groundstrokes from the Italian were taken early and on the rise from Carlos, which is a tactic that Alcaraz should have started with. Coupling this with the fact that Musetti was clearly struggling physically in the third set with a hip flexor issue, the match was not close. Match over. Alcaraz takes this final 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 and shows that he is still an extremely tough out when playing his style. While the third set was really a “no contest” due to Musetti’s injury, with Musetti slapping a lot of groundstrokes and barely moving laterally, Alcaraz deserves full credit for this win due to his play in the second set. If Carlos can continue this level, he will be a very tough player to beat during the clay swing of 2025.

ATP Highlights from Monte Carlo:

The Toronto born and raised up and coming star, Alejandro Tabilo (now competing for Chile), took out Novak Djokovic in the second round this week. A huge shock coming off of Novak’s run to the final in Miami.
Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina made a surprising run to the semis in Monte Carlo, bowing out to Alcaraz 7-5(2), 6-4.
Continuing with the theme of upsets, number 1 seed Alexander Zverev lost to Berrettini in three sets in the second round.

Canadian Corner:

Felix Auger-Aliassime fell to Daniel Altmaier of Germany 7-6 (5), 6-3 in the first round this week in Monte Carlo.
Denis Shapovalov also lost first round, 6-3, 7-6(5) to American Marcus Giron.
Canada failed to qualify for the Billie Jean Cup Finals after losing out to Japan this week in Tokyo. Victoria Mboko won her singles match, however, Rebecca Marino and Kayla Cross lost the decisive doubles match 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.

Elsewhere on the ATP and WTA Tours:

There were no other events this week on the ATP and WTA Tours.
At the Challenger (125) event this week in Mexico City, Felipe Melgini Alves of Brazil took the title.
On the WTA Challenger side, the Oerias Ladies Open took place in Portugal. Romanian Patricia Maria Tig came out on top.

ATP Rankings Update:

Big Movers:

After his run to the final this week in Monte Carlo, Lorenzo Musetti moved up three spots to world #11.
Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina shot up twelve spots to #30 after making semis this week.
Daniel Altmaier of Germany is up to world #68, a massive sixteen spot bump.

WTA Rankings Update:

Big Movers:

There was no movement in the world top 60 this week in the women’s singles rankings.

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