By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, April 14, 2025
Photo credit: Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters Facebook
Streaks of crimson clay colored his socks, a physical sign of Carlos Alcaraz doing the dirty work to rise to his maiden Monte-Carlo championship.
Alcaraz rallied from a set down defeating a hobbled Lorenzo Musetti 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 in the Monte Carlo final collecting his 18th career championship.
In was Alcaraz’s second impressive comeback of the tournament.
A defiant Alcaraz surged through five straight games rallying past 20-year-old Frenchman Arthur Fils 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 to reach his first Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters semifinal.
The second-seeded Alcaraz faced triple break point at 5-all in the second set before flipping the script and firing through nine of the next 10 points to snatch the second set.
Wnning Monte-Carlo taught Alcaraz a valuable lesson: Face the challenges and fears head on.
Pointing to co-coach Samuel Lopez’s mantra: Stay strong when stress comes, Alcaraz said the positivity paid off in the end.
“As my coach, Samuel said, probably stay positive is the thing that he most repeated this week. Stay strong and stay positive,” Alcaraz told the media in Monte-Carlo. “One thing that he told me and probably was the key of this great week was you have to face the difficulties you have. Face it, not avoid it.
“I think that changed a lot, because in the matches, you have to face them, not be worried about them, not be afraid of them. When you realize and you accept it and you face it, everything is going the right way.
“I think thanks to all the positive things and face those moments, it was a great week.”
Another lesson learned: Alcaraz was good enough to win a Masters 1000 even as his level rose and dipped dramatically during matches.
At times during both the quarterfinals and finals, Alcaraz’s first serve went MIA, his forehand flew even on some routine rally balls and his penchant for flirting with lines saw errors pile up.
But on pivotal points, Alcaraz frequently found the right mix of ambition and percentage play.
Given it’s his first clay-court event of the season, he believes he will get sharper as he spends more time on dirt.
Record reinforces that belief: The explosive Alcaraz is 17-1 on clay since May with his lone dirt loss coming to Novak Djoknovic in the Paris Olympics gold-medal match staged at Roland Garros.
“I just realized that I don’t have to think about all they talking about and just focus on myself,” Alcaraz said. “So I’m not gonna say I just proved them, that they’re wrong, but I just really happy to be able to refocus the important things and just be focused on myself and the part that I have to follow with my team, with my close people, and just playing for myself. So I’m just really happy that I was able to do it.”
