TENNIS | Tsitsipas sweeps Rublev and lifts his first Masters 1,000

Stefanos Tsitsipas, in one more step of a high-aiming career, achieved his first Masters 1,000 title by defeating in the Monte Carlo final to Andrey Rublev by 6-3 and 6-3 in 1h: 11, who also aspired to the first of this category. A match that could be a preview of what tennis will look like for years to come, when a Big Three that refuses to surrender leaves the circuit. Rafa Nadal (34 years old) fell in the quarterfinals against the Russian. Novak Djokovic (33), in the second round. And Roger Federer (39), who did not appear in the Principality, has played a tournament in 14 months. It is the future to come.

Tsitsipas (22 years old and 5th in the world) and Rublev (23 and rising from 8th to 7th) are two of those tennis players that the ATP baptized as Next Gen. In fact, they played the title of the Promise Finals in 2018, which was taken by Helleno, who would later be crowned in the 2019 Masters of 'majors' announcing that he was going to star. The Russian, a disciple of Fernando Vicente, arrived with a balance of 24-4 this year. But he entered the final stuck, slow. Lack of gasoline. Without the additional march that Tsitsipas did show, he broke for 2-0 and only gave up five points with his serve in the first set.

In the second, Tsitsipas broke for 2-1 and masterfully stopped the recovery that the Muscovite seemed to have started settled in Barcelona. Very safe, reliable with his serve (he did not concede a break ball) and forcefully closed with another break. At the Monte-Carlo Country Club, where his mother Julia Salnikova, who played for the USSR, won the junior tournament in 1981, Stefanos was crowned after having succumbed in the other two Masters 1,000 finals he had played. so far: Canada 2018 (Nadal) and Madrid 2019 (Djokovic). “It all started in Monte Carlo”, wrote on the camera Tsitsipas, happy, at the end of the game. There his mother stood out, with whom he hugged at the end, and there he has fixed his residence.

Monte Carlo was the third Masters 1,000 final in a row without a member of the Big Three. The third with players under 25 years old: Paris 2020 (Medvedev-Zverev), Miami 2021 (Hurkacz-Sinner) and Monte Carlo 2021 (Rublev-Tsitsipas). Youth sneaks through the cracks. We will see in the Grand Slam, where Nadal, Djokovic and Federer play to be the greatest.