Alexander Zverev won a battle of German giants on Thursday for a place in his first Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters quarter-final. In a match of power tennis that featured 15 service breaks, 6’6” Zverev overcame his 6’5” compatriot, Jan-Lennard Struff, in a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over two hours and three minutes. “I think I was hitting the ball pretty well, but we couldn’t hold onto our serves,” said Zverev post-match. On Friday, his 21st birthday, Zverev will play 2005 semi-finalist Richard Gasquet, who today became the first Frenchman in the Open Era to record 500 tour-level match wins. “To be in the quarter-finals of an [ATP World Tour] Masters 1000, you have to play well and the draw doesn’t get...
David Goffin was made to work hard on Thursday to beat Roberto Bautista Agut at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters for a place in the quarter-finals for the second consecutive year. The sixth-seeded Belgian found a way to beat fellow baseliner, No. 11 seed Bautista Agut, 6-4, 7-5 in one hour and 42 minutes on Court Des Princes, the second show court at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. “In the second set there were big points that hurt me physically, but I was able to win them,” said Goffin. “He always fights until the last point. He gives away no points. You have to fight for each point. At 5-5, I was able to turn it up a notch for me to...
Beating Rafael Nadal on clay is ample grounds for bragging rights and on Thursday, the two most recent men to have done so – Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem – will square off in the third round of the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters. The reward for the winner of arguably the toughest of the third-round match-ups is a potential meeting with the 10-time champion and top-seeded Spaniard in the quarter-finals, should he find a way past Russian Karen Khachanov. View FedEx ATP Head2Head for the following matches from the 2018 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters & vote for who you think will win! Thiem v Djokovic | Cilic v Raonic | Nadal v Khachanov [GROUP POLL]130[/GROUP POLL] It was Djokovic who ended Nadal’s hot...
After beating Croatia’s Borna Coric 7-6(2), 7-5 at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters on Wednesday, Novak Djokovic revealed he made adjustments to his racquet earlier this year. The 12-time Grand Slam champion recently made the change under former coaches Andre Agassi and Radek Stepanek as he began his return to the Tour, with his mind set on recapturing the form that saw him finish as year-end No. 1 in the ATP Rankings on four occasions (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015). “[I] changed the racquet earlier this year,” said Djokovic. “I made some small minor changes that actually in our world are quite significant. “(Andre) Agassi and Radek (Stepanek) who worked with me at the time felt it was a good call for the...
Marin Cilic denied Fernando Verdasco the 500th match win of his career on Wednesday as he booked his spot in the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters third round. The second-seeded Croatian worked hard for a 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over 2010 runner-up Verdasco in the final match of the day on Court Rainier III, the main show court. He will now compete against No. 14 Milos Raonic of Canada on Thursday. Cilic leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 2-1. Cilic broke Verdasco’s serve for a 3-1 lead, then recovered from 0/40 in the seventh game of the 35-minute first set. Verdasco, who saved three match points against Pablo Cuevas on Tuesday, gained a 2-0 lead in the second set, but Cilic quickly restored...
