Top five title favourites at ATP Monte Carlo Masters 2024

Published at :April 8, 2024 at 8:20 AM

Modified at :April 8, 2024 at 8:21 AM

(Courtesy : ATP Tour)

Djokovic, Alcaraz, Sinner headline Monte Carlo Masters 2024 contenders.

The clay court calendar that began last week with ATP 250 tournaments at Houston, Marrakech, and Estoril will see one of the biggest clay court events kick off in three days’ time at Monaco. The Rolex Monte Carlo Masters 2024 will be played on clay in the build-up to Roland Garros. The other two are in Madrid and Rome.

Eleven-time Monte Carlo champion Rafael Nadal won’t be turning up as, by his own admission, he is far from fit. The Spaniard took to Twitter to make the announcement late last night. The tournament is without its star player for the third year in a row.

The premier event gets underway on Saturday, April 6, when the qualifying rounds begin. The main draw will commence on April 7 and run through April 14. With the nature of competitive sports being what it is, some players stand clear of the field and have a better chance of holding aloft the trophy when the curtains come down.

Title favourites at Monte Carlo Masters 2024

Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic is a two-time winner here at Monte Carlo (2013, 2015), but is coming off a slow start to the 2024 season. Since reaching the last four at Melbourne, he bowed out of Indian Wells with a shock defeat to lucky loser Luca Nardi. The World No. 1 also withdrew from the Miami Open.

The Serb, the only man to have defeated Nadal twice in Monaco, will be looking to get back into the groove as the clay court season gets underway. The World No. 1 is the defending champion at Roland Garros, and a good run on clay beginning with the ATP Monte Carlo Masters will boost the Serbian’s confidence.

Djokovic has 40 Masters titles in the bag and 400 career wins in ATP 1000 events. A third trophy at the Principality will nudge him closer to the elusive 100th title. The Serb is currently on 98.

Carlos Alcaraz

A quarterfinal exit at Melbourne, a failure to defend his 2023 Argentina Open crown and an injury-related withdrawal at Brazil marred Alcaraz’s first two months of the 2024 season. The Spaniard turned things around – taking the win at Indian Wells, followed by a quarterfinal finish at Miami.

Alcaraz arrives in Monte Carlo with a more than healthy 9-1 win-loss in Masters events in 2024 and an overall win percentage of 76% at ATP 1000 events. Clay is by far the Spaniard’s favourite surface, with seven of his thirteen titles coming on them, including his debut win in Umag, Croatia.

Jannik Sinner

Sinner has made 2024 in all four tournaments he has turned up for thus far in 2024, winning three of them. Recently, he climbed to an all-time career-high ranking of World No. 2 following his triumph at Miami. Sinner is 22-1 this year, well clear of his peers, holds a 7-3 record at Monte-Carlo and was a semifinalist in Monaco last year.

While clay may not be his preferred surface (68% winning percentage), the new and improved Sinner can hold his own on the slower surface. He has two wins over clay court specialist Carlos Alcaraz as proof.

The Italian will begin his clay court season on a high with three ATP titles in the bag a mere three months into 2024.

Stefanos Tsitsipas

Despite dropping out of the ATP top ten, Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas cannot be ruled out from making a comeback at the Monte Carlo Masters. After all, the one-time World No. 3 is a champion two times over at Monaco in 2021 and 2022.

The Greek’s lacklustre start to the 2024 season aside – a semifinal appearance at Los Cabos the best result this year, Tsitsipas is 94-30 on clay with a winning percentage of 76%. Seven of the seventeen final appearances by the Greek have come on clay courts besides boasting a tidy 14-3 win-loss record at the ATP 1000 event.

Holger Rune

The year 2022 saw young Dane Holger Rune rose to a career-high No. 7 in the PIF ATP Rankings following his second ATP Masters final in Monte Carlo following a title run in Paris. Then nineteen, the Dane became the first teenager to reach the finals at the event since Rafael Nadal in 2006.

He defeated two top-ten seeds en route to his first final in Monaco, Daniil Medvedev and Jannik Sinner. The Dane has a healthy win-loss of 34-22 (60%) on clay.

Holger Rune shared more than a glimpse of his abilities on clay when, in 2022, ranked No. 40 – he took down Denis Shapovalov and Stefanos Tsitsipas on the way to his maiden French Open quarterfinal. The same year, he claimed his first Masters title in Paris by going through five top ten players in a single tournament. After scoring upset wins over Hubert Hurkacz, Andre Rublev, Carlos Alcaraz (retired), and Felix Auger-Aliassime, he pulled off a win from a set down against Novak Djokovic – 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.

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