OK this is my final post on the men's atp tour event the Monte Carlo Rolex masters, which is from Monte Carlo funnily enough, and I will cover the men's final which was a much anticipated match up between Novak Djokovic and eight time champion Rafa Nadal. So let's have a look at the match...
So the match itself promised to be quite a barnburner (or courtburner if you like or whatever) however despite being the favourite to win, Rafa started off nervous and jittery as he struggled to get things going on his serve, and making uncharacteristic unforced errors as well. Djokovic however was by contrast in great form as he powered his way to a very surprising 5-0 lead, and Rafa had to dig deep to even hold onto his own serve as he narrowly avoided a bagel set. Nole however showed signs of tightness as well as he faltered on trying to serve out the set at 5-1 and Rafa broke back to take hand him a lifeline, but Rafa soon squandered it with a double fault to give Nole the first set. In the 2nd set, things were on a more competitive keel, and Rafa's level improved considerably as he got himself in the match and finally broke Nole's serve. However at 4-3, Rafa serving to make it 5-3, he was broken back by Novak once again, who levelled the scores 4-4, and play went by serve until the tiebreak, where it was Djokovic that dominated the Spaniard, and after 8 years of reign in Monte Carlo, Nole dethrone the king with a stunning 6-2, 7-6(1) victory.
This was quite a match from Novak Djokovic who broke Rafa's eight year winning streak at Monte Carlo and he did it quite a stunning fashion here, with an incredible performance and despite the odd dip or two he looked in full control. And this now sees Djokovic in terms of actual individual Masters titles won as the most successful player in the history of the game, as he is the first man to win 8 out of the 9 Masters events on the men's tour, the only one remaining is Cincinnati and he will have the full set. And given the doubts over his ankle its even more incredible that Djokovic was able to come into this event and go on to win it, and after a slow start he did so in great fashion, so a big well done to him for claiming his first Monte Carlo title, which sees him complete the whole clay court set of Masters titles, adding to his already incredible record.
As for Rafa well it was a bit of a strange and underwhelming performance at times from him, especially in the 1st set where he looked edgy and nervous, and he clearly wasn't hitting the ball the way he wanted to, without the usual level of venom and pace that he injects into his groundstrokes. In the 2nd set Rafa's level definitely went up and it became quite a tight and competitive match in that set, and once Rafa got the break at 3-2 and even at 6-5, you felt he had a good chance to level the match at a set all, but it just didn't happen for him. This leaves a few concerns for Rafa, as for the rest of the clay court season he has a lot of points to defend and having lost the title in Monte Carlo today he has already automatically dropped 400 points, which will drop even more if he were to lose in the upcoming Masters in Madrid and Rome.
There is also the concern that Rafa might end up on a big losing streak to Djokovic once again as he did in 2011, and in this respect it might actually still give an opportunity for Andy Murray to step in again and re-seize the No.2 spot at some point in the future. However that's all ahead and for now Rafa has got another tournament ahead of him in Barcelona, where again he is the defending champion and with no Djokovic to worry about, this should hopefully see him with a strong chance to win there again and restore some confidence in his game and his rythym, which he voiced concerns about in Monte Carlo. But for now Rafa has now dropped back down to No.5 in the world with his Spanish compatriot, David Ferrer once again overtaking him in the rankings. Whether or not this will reflected or not in Barcelona remains to be seen, as despite that, Rafa is still very much the favourite. All we can hope is that Rafa doesn't start losing confidence in his game, as he still isn't 100 percent physically yet, but I'm sure the king of clay will make a resurgance in the future.
Right so that's it for now, I might well post up some stuff on the ladies WTA clay court indoor event from Stuttgart, the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, where some of the top seeds will fight it out for the right to win either a funny shaped trophy or take home a Porsche (the latter more tempting!).
So that's it for now.
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