ATP Masters Madrid: How to artificially build tension
Novak Djokovic meets Gael Monfils this Tuesday at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid. And will try to win the 18th match against the Frenchman on the ATP tour as well.
by Jens Huiber
last edit:
May 03, 2022, 07:55 am
It can be assumed that Novak Djokovic did not take his two defeats on ashes in the 2022 season too seriously, for the world number one, only triumphs in the Grand Slam tournaments count. You can just about get over a defeat against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in Monte Carlo and another against Andrey Rublev in the final in Belgrade, Djokovic still has Madrid and Rome to get in shape for the French Open.
skymadrid2022
And who could give better start-up support than Gael Monfils, against whom Djokovic has a record of 17-0 wins. Admittedly, at the last encounter in Dubai in 2020, it was quite close, Monfils could have won this game. actually have to. But didn't accept Djokovic's invitations towards the end of the second set. And lost in the third. But it's nice that the ATP wants to artificially build tension in the social networks.
Monfils starts the year with a tournament victory
Gael Monfils started the tennis year 2022 very well: First the Frenchman won the first of two 250s in Adelaide, then he made it to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, where he narrowly lost to Matteo Berrettini. Almost a little surprising after the course of the game, because Monfils had equalized a 0:2 set deficit. After that, little came from the Frenchman, who took a break after the tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami.
Monfils is considered to be very empathetic, not only in his role as Elina Svitolina's husband the events in Ukraine took him away. Svitolina herself has completely lost focus after a very good winter preparation with Günter Bresnik's group, the Ukrainian will be absent again next week in Rome.
From a perspective, Gael Monfils is in a similar situation to his current opponent Novak Djokovic: The focus of the now 35-year-old, who was born in Paris, is also on winning a major. Monfils, as he emphasized in Australian, would be enough. For Djokovic it is about number 21 at the Bois de Boulogne in a few weeks.
Here is the individual tableau in Madrid
madrid map