While Nadal controlled the first set with his first serve, winning 74 percent of his first-serve points, Monfils jumped on his second serve, as he won 71 percent of the Spaniard’s second-serve points. Nadal stands 27-14 at the Masters 1000 level, one title behind all-time leader Djokovic.
Advertisement
France’s Gael Monfils reacts during his final match of the Monte Carlo Tennis Masters tournament …
Elsewhere, crowds welcomed newly-crowned Monte Carlo Masters champion and eight-time Barcelona Open victor Rafael Nadal as he arrived at the club.
Nadal will seek to maintain his form ahead of the French Open, where he will attempt to win the Grand Slam tournament for the 10th time in his career.
Capitalising on successive double faults early in the deciding set from Monfils – who has a poor record in finals – Nadal surged to his ninth career title in Monaco.
He’ll face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Gael Monfils in the final. “The victory here confirms that I’ve been better”, said Nadal.
“I played very aggressive tennis through the whole match, which is my style of play”, said Abanda, who hit 24 winners in the match. Monfils’s only chance against Nadal is to play relentlessly aggressive and refuse to follow his natural inclination to retreat behind the baseline and retrieve, and that’s something that works much much better on faster surfaces.
It took him 2 hours, 46 minutes to finally see off Monfils, who had never won a set against Nadal on clay and had lost 11 of their 13 previous matches.
“I’m really happy to have won one of the most important tournaments of the year”, he added. “I increased the speed of the ball and played a little bit more inside the court, because Andy had control of the point too many times in the first set”.
The two could meet again in the quarter-finals as Nadal has been handed a tricky draw with compatriot David Ferrer also potentially awaiting in the semis.
The opening set, in particular, included some punishing rallies, with Monfils at times appearing as if he would need an oxygen tank brought onto the court in order to continue.
Monfils will take some confidence in advancing to the final and giving Nadal a battle for two sets, though his collapse in the final set was a major disappointment.
“I do feel like I played a pretty good level match today for the most part”.
Advertisement
After Nadal served out the second set, during which Murray got only 39 percent of his first serves in, the Spaniard broke him again at the start of the third with an exquisite drop shot.
