It was a dream semifinal day in Monte Carlo. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, the stands were full, the boats were drifting in the Mediterranean, and the top two male players in the world, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, were in action. Zendaya was even in the house, for an extra touch of glam.
The only trouble, if you were unlucky enough to have to watch the matches on TV instead of live, was that the light was so bright, you couldn’t see the ball. At times Sinner and his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, looked like they were playing the most intense shadow-tennis match of all time.
But the real tennis didn’t disappoint. Both semis—Sinner vs. Tsitsipas, and Djokovic vs. Casper Ruud—went three sets. Both were back-and-forth affairs where the higher seed lost the first and fought back, to the crowd’s excitement, to claim the second. Both matches showed off the athleticism and all-court entertainment value of modern tennis on clay.
What used to be a surface of monotonous rallies and matches of attrition has gradually become the best showcase for today’s variety. Drop shots, lobs, volleys, angles, passes: All of them are more common on clay than anywhere else, and all four players made broad use of their shot-making repertoire.
Then something surprising happened: The two players who were supposed to set up an epic 1-2 Sunday final, Sinner and Djokovic, ended up losing just when they seemed to destined to win.