MONITOR CLAY

“Yannick Sinner is Monte Carlo champion 2026. His first big clay court title, his fourth straight 1,000 title, slowly but surely, chipping away at that Carlos Alcaraz head to head, having won three out of the last five. And he becomes number one in the world. I think both players, Alcaraz and Sinner, have made it clear that that is a footnote in their heads, and I think it should be a footnote in our heads as well.”

“If you take no rest, no rest, you've got six days of prep on a surface you haven't played on in six months. And then you have to play five matches in six days in a condensed format, very high level competition, pretty much every round. That's tough. You've gotta be cut from a a different cloth to manage that, and he becomes the first to do it successfully since Novak Djokovic in 2015.”

“If I’m putting on my coach's hat and I see Sinner at 50 unforced errors, which is of course really high in a two set match, I'm saying that's okay. Jannik has to play attacking tennis. He needs to get on Alcaraz and be on his front foot and and take charge with big aggressive ground strokes. We saw what happened, I think, when he played a safer style against Carlos throughout 2024. It just did not work.”

“Sinner was not really allowing Carlos to play that high ball into the backhand because he was so proactive in taking the slower ball into his backhand and making sure I'm gonna utilize that time to make forehands and then play on the rise at shoulder level. That was sort of the positioning that Sinner was typically looking for when Carlos played the high ball. I saw him getting around a lot of forehands and flattening it out inside out.”

“If you look at how many forehands Alcaraz hit, the number is, 98 versus a 112 backhands. That's amazing. It's really hard to get Carlos to hit that many more backhands compared to forehands. Sinner, on the other hand, hit a 117 forehands to just 80 backhands. The only way that that's possible is that you're playing a lot of points if you're Yannick Sinner getting to hit your forehand into Alcaraz's backhand.”

“And then basically midway through Indian Wells, the app stopped working and I have not heard from them. So this is where my information on what's going on is very limited. I don't know what happened, but I think it's safe to assume Bulkie is not going to be a thing. I hope everyone's okay over there. More likely than not, they probably just axed the project and they haven't been communicative with me.”

“The funny thing is this week, coincidentally, the ATP has launched its own fantasy tennis game. I was not a genius for the last three years thinking that this is something that should get done. And I've even reached out to other podcasts and I've been like, hey, can we do this together? Well, the ATP, they have made a move here. So for now, let's just do that. I have signed up. I have made a league. It's called Monday Match Analysis.”

“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's 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.”

“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, Feis, Munnar, Korda. And then a few Americans didn't sign up. Shelton, Tommy, Paul, a couple 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.”

“I want to pick from the section with Tiafoe and Bublik because as far as which unseated player is most likely to make a deep run, it's going to probably be out of that section. And then you have a very close on-paper matchup against Martan Fucovic, who actually beat Tabilo in Bucharest in 2024. But I just feel like Fucovic will have a lot of trouble hunting forehands against Tabilo's lefty precision. And I like the way Tabilo is playing overall. And to me, he's just easily the most dangerous unseated player in that particular section.”

“I mean, this really wasn't any spectacular tennis from either player, but it was a gritty contest.”

“Today it was not the regular altitude type of game that he enjoys... he actually kind of just needed to outgrind Rafa Nadal.”

“It's funny he's playing at night, by the way, because like that's literally the tournament organizers saying, we gotta give him literally every minute possible.”

“Iga's dropped to number four in the world, hasn't reached a final this season. Her game is the Spanish school, heavy top spin, extreme RPMs, grinding opponents behind the baseline. Royce has literally built his career coaching that style. The first tournament together for the duo, Stuttgart April 13th, clay season officially is on.”

“It appears that some rivalries may not ever leave the court, they just move into the boardroom. Now Andy's selling sneakers made of castor beans, corn and seaweed, meanwhile, Roddick's sitting on a 3% stake of On Running, a company valued at nearly $20 billion. His stake alone is worth around $375 million.”

“Monte Carlo kicks off this weekend. Quick reminder, it's the only non-mandatory Masters 1000 and the withdrawal list reflects that. Five big names out, Novak Djokovic with a right shoulder, Taylor Fritz healing some tendonitis, Jack Draper still managing an arm injury, and 2025 semifinalist Davidovic Fekina is out with an abdominal tear.”

“Lopez said of the actions by Alcaraz that it shouldn't be normalized, but it is not surprising for a 22-year-old. He said that Carlos needs to control those impulses, especially in front of the opponent. You don't want to show those weaknesses to the other side of the net, but that beyond that, that's just how Carlos releases tension.”

“Reports broke this week that the WTA finals are potentially leaving Saudi Arabia after this season. The three-year deal with Riyadh is done, and the front runner to host starting in 2027, Charlotte, North Carolina, serves hometown in just a few hours drive north here of Charleston.”