Stefanos Tsitsipas won the first Masters 1000 title and the sixth overall trophy of his career in Monte-Carlo without dropping a set, ending a streak of defeats in his past three finals. The Greek player has made a perfect start to the clay-season, which will lead up to Roland Garros, where he is aiming to win his first Grand Slam title.
“Whatever had to happen happened. I stepped up my game, brought up this good game, good tennis. I didn’t see any reason for me to leave from here without the trophy. I felt like I deserved it. I have put so much effort and so much concentration into it. Definitely something that I deserve. More opportunities like this is going to show up and come up in the future, so I need to be ready to show my consistency and prevail with that”, said Tsitsipas.
Tsitsipas moved above Rublev to the top of the ATP Race to Turin. The Greek star leads 4-3 in his head-to-head matches against Rublev. He avenged the recent defeat against his Russian rival in last month’s ABN AMRO World Tennis Championships semifinals in Rotterdam. Tsitsipas also beat Rublev in straight sets in last year’s Roland Garros quarter finals.
“That is great. It’s just the beginning. We still have plenty of tennis to be played. It’s great to be in the lead. I am not trying to think of it too much, because, again, many tournaments in front of me, ahead of me. I am going to try to recalibrate, refocus. Attention is now in Barcelona. My body is feeling good, which is good sign. I am really pumped to go for some more points in the next couple of weeks”.
Tsitsipas dropped just nine games across four sets to edge past Dan Evans and Andrey Rublev. He became only the third active player to win the first Masters 1000 title without dropping a set after Novak Djokovic and Grigor Dimitrov.
Tsitsipas followed into the footsteps of his mother Julia Salnikova, who won a junior title in Monte-Carlo in 1981. Stefanos grew up in a family with a sporting heritage. His grandfather Sergei Salnikov, who won the Olympic gold medal in football in Melbourne 1956 in the same Australian Open, where Stefanos reached the Australian Open semifinal in 2019 and 2021.
“To share this is incredible. The first time I walked in that club, the Monte-Carlo Country Club, with my mom, I think that was when I was six years old. She showed me her name up there. I remember seeing it for the first time. I was stunned. That is really cool. How cool is that. “I did not think about it in the beginning of the tournament, but it came to my mind when I was playing the semifinals. I was thinking that it would be really cool to be in this together, like mother like son. That’s where the whole purpose came from. I feel like there was an enormous amount of willingness to want to do more in order to be there with my mother. There are two people I would like to dedicate this title to. My coach bak in Greece, who I mentioned in the trophy ceremony, and also my mom, because she pushed me to aim for that”, said Tsitsipas.