By Miguel Mike Medina
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No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz wins his first Monte Carlo Masters title after defeating No. 13 Italian tennis player Lorenzo Musetti (3-6, 6-1, 6-0).
The 21-year-old Spaniard now captured his 18th career title.
After the match, he shared some lovely words with his team during the Championship speech.
“To my team.. I have no words to say how grateful I am for the great work and everything,” Alcaraz said. “To be my team.. in the professional part.. and to be my family.. because I feel like we are like a family. We’ve been through a difficult moment in the last month. We’ve always been together, really strong together. Going the right path and doing great things. I want to come here to Monte Carlo and play good tennis. I want to say thank you for everything. You made me stay here and win this tournament. I want to say thank you. I love the people standing here and supporting at home as well.”
The victory marked Alcaraz’s sixth career Masters 1000 title. It’s a major bounce back after failing to win the Australian Open, Indian Wells, and the Miami Open. Alcaraz looked sharp and focused and managed to tune down his nerves throughout this tournament, which has been a problem for me, especially in the Miami Open.
“This is huge for me,” Alcaraz told Tennis Channel. “I’ve won Masters 1000 before, Grand Slam before. It’s always immense, you know, lifting a Masters 1000 trophy again. So for me, it’s great.”
Although Alcaraz struggled in the first set and made some mistakes, he got into a rhythm in the second set and played strategically and not overly aggressively.
“I played excellent rallies, long rallies,” Alcaraz said. “It helped me out a lot to go up and see that I have the level I have, you know, all I had to do was deal with the nerves and the pressure much better. I think I did pretty well. I stay positive all the time.”
Musetti performed excellently throughout this tournament and made Alcaraz work for it early in the match. During his speech, he voiced his gratitude for playing against Alcaraz.
“Of course, I wanna thank Carlos for sharing the court… always a pleasure for me,” Musetti said. “Always a lesson. I’m disappointed I couldn’t finish the match in the best way for the crowd, and for all the support I’ve received this week. But you deserve it. I’ll try to come back for revenge. Congrats to your team. You know the way better than us. We look up to you guys, your dedication, your work. I appreciate sharing some opportunities like today.”
Alcaraz will replace Alexander “Sascha” Zverev as world number two when the rankings are updated on Monday, but at this point, Alcaraz is not worried or doesn’t care about rankings.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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