MONITOR CLAY REPS

“Zverev finally started serving Medvedev heavily wide in Paris, and Zverev likes, he favors the tea serves. He likes to go tea. And against Medvedev, that's his, those are his better returns. Moving into the middle of the court, from that deep return position, you don't really get anywhere serving tea against Medvedev. You've got to go wide. You're not really going to ace him. You're not going to get a lot of service winners.”

“The way I could justify it is, he was healthy enough to play Indian Wells. And that makes me think, unless there was a setback, a physical setback that I'm unaware of, that makes me think that he's had ample time to prepare and build up his fitness for Monte Carlo week. That he's actually been healthy for a couple of weeks now, which means he's been able to push it hard in the fitness and the training, and that he might be ready to go here.”

“I personally love it. My dark horse here is Alejandro Tabilo. My upset alert is Francis Tiafoe. My early popcorn is Alcaraz against the winner of Baez and Vavrenka. I promise I'm not being paid by Alejandro Tabilo. I'm not in his payroll. You have my word on that. But I cannot believe this, but it's three straight tournaments. He has been my dark horse.”

“But ultimately, I do think Alcaraz will get back on track here and win Monte Carlo back to back. He has been so, so good on clay. The extra effectiveness on the forehand for Carlos, the options that he has creatively to sort of use his drop shot in these conditions after pushing players back with the heavy spin and of course, the defense and the returning, which is just impenetrable in slow clay court conditions.”

“I also want to say before we go quarter by quarter, this is a pretty significantly weakened field based on just withdrawal. So I'm going to go down the list right now. It's Djokovic, Fritz, Draper, Davidovic, Vakina, Feess, Munnar, Korda. And then a few Americans didn't sign up, Shelton, Tommy Paul, a couple of others. So there are plenty of players who you would normally expect to see in a Masters 1000 tournament that we will not be seeing.”

“Only one time in tennis history has a player won the Sunshine Double, and then also won Monte Carlo. And that was Djokovic in 2015. In fact, only one time has a player won Miami, and then won Monte Carlo. That was Djokovic in 2015, of course. So, it doesn't really happen. The Sunshine Double, those are two events that are appropriately grouped together. They're back to back.”

“Let's talk Monte Carlo. It is of the clay tournaments. It generally reads as the slowest. It's windy and it is slow. The ball is going to lose a ton of energy on the court surface. And the real sort of natural clay quarters, especially because there is less time for the less natural players to even make that adjustment and to get comfortable again on the dirt, the real natural clay quarters are usually going to do pretty well at this tournament.”