Every resurgent champion needs a stroke of good fortune, and for Stefanos Tsitsipas it came against Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters.
Facing a break point that would have given Jannik Sinner a 4-1 lead in the deciding set, Tsitsipas sent a second serve long, only for the match officials to miss the call. The Greek, who last reached a final eight months ago, went on to win the point, the game and the match; Sinner, the best player in the world this year by a distance, was left to ruminate on what might have been. Both men agreed the missed call was a turning point.
“I think the match would have turned out completely different if that would have been called out,” said Tsitsipas. “It would have been pretty bad for me if that call was made.”
But while luck is one thing, what you do with it is quite another. On Sunday, Tsitsipas made the most of his unexpected reprieve, producing a performance full of brio and versatility to defeat Norway’s Casper Ruud 6-1, 6-4 and win his third Monte Carlo title in four years.
Two months after dropping out of the top 10 for the first time since 2019, the 25-year-old’s biggest victory since his 2022 triumph in the principality marks a significant upturn in his fortunes. Tsitsipas will return to the game’s top table next week, rising five places to No 7, and now finds himself in distinguished company, joining Ilie Nastase, Björn Borg, Thomas Muster and Rafael Nadal as only the fifth player to win three or more titles in Monte Carlo. The obvious distinction between the Greek and that quartet of former world No 1s lies in his lack of a French Open title, yet this was an encouraging first step on the road to Paris, where Tsitsipas was a finalist in 2021. On this form, he undoubtedly merits inclusion on any shortlist of contenders for the second major of the season.
“I did need a week like this a lot, especially the rough months that I have been through [from] the last half of 2023 until now,” said Tsitsipas. “It hasn’t been the best of times in terms of where I wanted to be, so getting back here and winning the title is something that I was definitely not aiming for.
“Winning this tournament three times is something I would have never imagined. Even when I got it the first time, I obviously thought it was a great feeling and that place is special towards me. But getting the holy trinity, as I call it, is something that I will fully cherish and take the most out of.”
In the moments after Tsitsipas converted his first championship point with a rapier-like forehand down the line, the last of 23 devastating winners, it was clear how much the victory meant. The triumphant culmination of his renascent run left Tsistsipas weeping with emotion at courtside. “Back in the game!” cried his physical trainer, Christos Fiotakis, as the jubilant Greek celebrated with his support team. It was hard to disagree. The last time Tsitsipas overcame three top-10 players in the same tournament was in 2018, when he saw off Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev and Kevin Anderson to reach the Canadian Open final. After defeating Zverev, Sinner and the redoubtable Ruud, he is undeniably back in the game.
“He’s maybe had a few struggles the last six, seven months,” said Ruud, whose run to the second Masters 1000 final of his career lifts him four places to sixth in the rankings. “I think we can be open and say that. He fell out of the top 10 a few weeks ago for the first time in a really long time. Now he will be back in it. I think that’s where he belongs. His level is really good when he plays like this. It’s nice to see him back in the top 10.”
This was Tsitsipas at his free-flowing, all-court best: dictating the baseline exchanges with his venomous forehand, making bold and imaginative forays to the net, fearlessly dispatching overheads. Even the elusiveness of his first serve did not trouble him, Tsitsipas compensating for a modest 48% success rate by winning a remarkable 68% of his second serve points. “Fate favours [the] fearless,” he scrawled on a TV camera lens, a fitting summary of his swashbuckling performance.
For all his derring-do, however, the Greek was helped by an erratic display from Ruud, who succeeded in bringing his ferocious topspin forehand into play frequently enough to play the match on his own terms, yet struggled to make his biggest weapon tell. All but five of the Norwegian’s 20 unforced errors came off the forehand, a statistic shaped partly by Tsitsipas’s unrelenting aggression, but mainly by his own overpressing. Normally the most serene and composed of characters, Ruud was directing agitated chatter towards his team as early as the fourth game, where he missed a trio of chances to reclaim an early break. It set the tone for a contest in which he was unable to convert any of the eight break points he fashioned.
“When I played Stef in the past, I think the guy who is able to play most aggressive and best with the forehand typically wins the match,” said Ruud, who claimed a maiden win over Djokovic in the semi-finals. “I think we both prefer our forehand sides over the backhands.
“But today he played also heavy, good from his backhand side. It wasn’t like I found any big holes. I was a little tentative sometimes with the forehand in the beginning, so I missed a few in the net. I was thinking, ‘OK, play loose, go for it, at least go for the winner.’ Then, when I did, I felt like it was going too much out. I didn’t really find a good balance today.”
The same could not be said of Tsitsipas, whose return to form marks an intriguing development at the start of what is shaping up to be the most open clay-court season in years. Since reaching his second major final at the Australian Open last year, the Greek’s game has too often been less than the sum of its formidable parts. But with uncertainty surrounding the fitness of Rafael Nadal and the form of Djokovic, and Carlos Alcaraz struggling with an arm injury, a window of opportunity could be opening. Could Tsitsipas’s win over Sinner prove the catalyst for something yet more momentous?
“I had an opponent in the semi-final that is a world class tennis player right now, who refused to lose to anyone, and he’s been on a very good streak,” said Tistsipas. “Overcoming that obstacle, it’s definitely a sign that my tennis is progressing and I’m able to push those players.
“Topping it off, the win today with prevailing and coming victorious towards the end against Casper, who is a very good clay court player – he has shown that by playing multiple Roland Garros finals – it’s definitely a sign that I’m there and the consistency is showing. Definitely I’m capable of big things.”
With springtime in Paris beckoning, we shall soon see just how big.