{"id":588190,"date":"2026-04-07T14:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588190\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:40:21","slug":"the-red-clay-trap-monte-carlos-greatest-upsets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/588190\/","title":{"rendered":"The Red Clay Trap: Monte-Carlo’s Greatest Upsets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Monte-Carlo Masters, which kicked off this week, tends to mark the start of the clay-court season. Despite not being the first clay court tournament of the season, its position shortly after the clay season<\/a> gets underway and its status as a Masters 1000 event truly usher in the clay season. It is traditionally when most of the best players get their first run out on the red dirt. The tournament is played on traditional, slow red clay at sea level, which tends to encourage long physical rallies. It also stylistically marks a sharp departure from the game styles of the hard court events that precede it. In many ways, it feels like an entirely different sport in terms of what is required to be successful.<\/p>\n

As players strive to make the necessary adaptations to be successful on the surface whilst still coming to terms with the much higher physical requirements, it often leads to huge upsets. We\u2019ve certainly had a few of them in recent years, and with the start of the new edition, there is no better time to look back at a few of them, involving some of the best players on the surface as well as some of your favourites.<\/p>\n

Monte-Carlos Greatest\u2019s Upsets
\n2005: Richard Gasquet defeats Roger Federer (Quarter Finals)<\/p>\n

Arguably, the most famous upset in the tournament\u2019s history. An unknown 18-year-old Gasquet, ranked outside the top 100 and sporting a fancy one-handed backhand just like the man he was facing, shocked the tennis world by doing the unthinkable. He defeated Roger Federer<\/a>, then world #1 and on a 25-match winning streak, saving not one, but three match points along the way. It marked a monumental moment in the Frenchman\u2019s career. He ultimately lost to Rafa Nadal in three sets in the following match. He only ever beat the Swiss Maestro one more time throughout his career, losing nineteen times, highlighting what an achievement that truly was.<\/p>\n

2019: Fabio Fognini defeats Rafael Nadal (Semi finals)<\/p>\n

In the 2019 semi-final, Fabio Fognini, as he is capable of when he wants to, played lights-out tennis to defeat Nadal in straight sets<\/a>, ending the Spaniard\u2019s 25-set winning streak in the tournament. He completely obliterated the defending champion, at some point leading 5-0 in the second set. By doing so, he became only the fourth player to beat the 11-time champion at Monte-Carlo. He went on to win the tournament, which was remarkably his first Masters 1000<\/a> event title. It was also the last time he ever beat the Spaniard, having previously done so on three other occasions. As for Rafa, he described it as one of his worst performances on clay<\/a>. He also never won Monte-Carlo again, further highlighting what a monumental day it proved to be.<\/p>\n

2016: Jiri Vesely defeats Novak Djokovic (Round 2)<\/p>\n

When a top player gets knocked out in only round two of a tournament, heads tend to turn. When that player is ranked #1 in the world and named Novak Djokovic<\/a>, it becomes quite the head scratcher. However, that is exactly what happened when the Czech, ranked #55 at the time, knocked him out<\/a> in three sets, in what was then his first top ten victory in nine attempts. It remains one of the most unexpected early exits for Novak in his prime. Maybe even more interestingly, the Czech beat him again, six years later, at the Dubai Quarter finals. He leads their head-to-head 2-0, putting him in what is a rare category of players who lead the great Serb in their meetings.<\/p>\n

A Major Upset This Year?<\/p>\n

While there have been a few more matches that can certainly be classed as upsets in the years since, there have been very few that were as massive as the aforementioned. They were as stunning as they were unexpected in the way events unfolded, which leads to the question of whether we can expect or hope to see a shocker that will rival those in sheer unexpectedness. It certainly feels that such a match will almost certainly have to involve one of Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner to be considered a real bombshell moment. There would be no doubt plenty of players hoping to create such headlines, set a red clay trap and add to Monte-Carlo\u2019s notoriety.<\/p>\n

Our team of experts will, as always, be providing insights and predictions<\/a> on the matches as they unfold. But, as with those matches, if and when we do get a shocking moment, it would probably be one that no one saw coming. Fingers crossed!<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Monte-Carlo Masters, which kicked off this week, tends to mark the start of the clay-court season. Despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6733,223035,22932,49,48,210053,224335,217743,2083,7627,224336,2189,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-588190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-atp-monte-carlo","10":"tag-atp-tour","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-fabio-fognini","14":"tag-jiri-vesely","15":"tag-monte-carlo-masters","16":"tag-novak-djokovic","17":"tag-rafael-nadal","18":"tag-richard-gasquet","19":"tag-roger-federer","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}