Novak Djokovic is out of the Monte Carlo Masters, after his second consecutive defeat to Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo. A single break in each set proved enough for the world No. 32 in Monaco, who triumphed 6-3, 6-4 to back up his straight-sets win over Djokovic at last year’s Italian Open in Rome.
Djokovic, who is bidding to tune himself up for May’s French Open while seeking a 100th ATP Tour title, could not produce the ruthless serving performance that carried him to the Miami Open finals. Clay is less hospitable to servers than a hard court, but Tabilo found more efficiency behind his own delivery, winning 81 percent of points played behind his first serve compared to Djokovic’s 67 percent. Djokovic’s return — perhaps the best in the history of men’s tennis — also faltered, with the majority of them landing in the no-man’s land between the service line and the baseline.
“I was ready for him to come out and almost want to kill me,” Tabilo said on the Tennis Channel after his win.
“I started off really solid, just trying to be aggressive. I tried to hold him back as well as possible. Slowly it started working and I feel like I made him a little bit uncomfortable in some situations, which was great for those pressure moments.”
Last year’s loss in Rome came after Djokovic was struck on the head by a metal water bottle which fell from a spectator’s bag at the end of his previous match. The 24-time Grand Slam champion, 38, went for concussion tests in Belgrade after losing to Tabilo there and looked affected by the blow. This year’s defeat to Tabilo, who went 18-27 between beating Djokovic in Rome and this encounter in Monte Carlo, had the air of a player seeking his footing during a change of surface, while balancing a desire to peak at the biggest of events with the slow erosion of consistency that comes with time.
While Djokovic reached the semifinals of last year’s tournament, losing to Casper Ruud, it has not been a site of regular success: before that 2024 run, he had not gone the past the quarterfinals in five appearances. It is an adjustment event for him, a place to acclimatize and to build — a build which, for this year, has lasted one match.
Tabilo moves on to play either Valentin Vacherot of Monaco or Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov. Earlier in the day, No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz switched on the lights after an error-strewn first set against Francisco Cerundolo, one of the world’s better clay-court players. Having lost the first set 6-3, Alcaraz lost just one more game, winning 3-6, 6-0, 6-1. Ruud beat Roberto Batista Agut of Spain in straight sets; Australia’s Alex de Minaur got past the Czech, Tomas Machac, in three and Andrey Rublev took out Gael Monfils in two.
(Photo: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
