It was a day that belonged to the Monégasques at the Monte-Carlo Country Club as Valentin Vacherot beat the world No.5, Lorenzo Musetti, to keep his dream of Monte-Carlo Masters glory alive. Earlier in the day, Hugo Nys progressed in the Doubles.
Having beaten Novak Djokovic in Shanghai in the Autumn, Vacherot sought to pull off another scalp, one rendered less surprising given the Monégasque’s rise to prominence. A relatively unknown quantity this time last year, he went into the Shanghai Masters in October ranked 204th in the world. After beating Djokovic in the semi-finals and then his cousin, Arthur Rinderknech, in the final of that tournament, he not only tasted Masters glory for the first time in his career, but he also catapulted up the rankings. Coming into the Monte-Carlo Masters, he was ranked 23rd in the world.
For more reasons than one, it was a special win in China, an irreplaceable feeling, but his tears after beating Musetti (7-6 (8-6), 7-5) expressed how much it would mean to win on home clay. It is fair to say that victory at the MCCC would mean more to Vacherot than any other player involved in the Men’s Singles competition. “I’ve always said that my biggest objective is to win here […] winning here would mean more than a Grand Slam,” said the Monégasque pre-tournament.
Even in his native Monaco, Vacherot’s fans were outnumbered by their Italian counterparts. “You only filled a quarter of the stadium but you made the most noise,” he would tell them after his victory. Tucked away in the corner, Vacherot raised a defiant fist towards them at the end of the second game after he broke Musetti to compensate for losing his first service game. Both quickly improved on serve, with neither coming close to breaking.
That was until the 10th game of the first set. Musetti looked to comfortably hold until Vacherot came from 40-15 down to earn an improbable set point, denied by an ace. He would get a second bite of the apple in the next game. Same result, despite Musetti losing his footing.
When Musetti then put a sumptuous forehand down the line to make it 4-1 in the tie-break, the Monégasque looked set to pay a heavy price for his missed chances. But winning four points in a row, he roared back, only for Musetti to get the first shot at taking the tie-break. The Italian missed, and it was then third time lucky for Vacherot, who took the set.
He then had two bites at the apple to break an increasingly frustrated Musetti in the third game of the second set, but passed up the first with an unforced error and missed the second due to a sublime drop shot from his opponent, but the Monégasque would take his chance in the seventh when offered three break points. Vacherot only needed one chance to deal a massive psychological blow.
Musetti needed to break Vacherot to stay in this year’s Monte-Carlo Masters, and he had the chance to do so in the following game. He didn’t take it. Vacherot held. Musetti’s reaction was one of anger, not resignation. With just one chance remaining to break the No.23 seed, he showed fight, working two break points and taking the first.
Reaction and counterreaction: Vacherot hit straight back. A second chance to serve for the win. This one was taken. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d beat a top five player on clay, on my centre court… I wouldn’t have believed it. And yet I was there. It’s mad,” he reacted. It is a result that topped a memorable day for Monégasque tennis.
Arneodo fails in his defence of Double’s title
Encouraging Vacherot from his bench were his compatriots, Romain Arneodo and Nys. Earlier in the day, they were pitted against each other. There is often great fanfare that follows Monégasque players around the courts of the MCCC, but as two faced each other for the first time in a Masters event, there was a decidedly calmer atmosphere. The Monaco Davis Cup team, including captain Guillaume Couillard, after often vociferous in their support of their compatriots, but out of respect, they opted for a policy of “neutrality”, which translated into silence, even in the key moments of a tightly-fought encounter.
Arneodo won the doubles tournament last year, going one step further than in the Spring of 2023, when he came up short in the final. That defeat came alongside Sam Weissborn, and the victory alongside Manuel Guinard. On Wednesday, he was partnered with Pierre-Hugues Hembert. Ahead of the Monte-Carlo Masters, Arneodo spoke of the negative impact of the frequent partner changes, and it translated on the court.
Nys, speaking candidly alongside Arneodo, said that he felt liberated and unburdened in the underdog role and he and partner Édouard Roger-Vasselin almost broke in the first game. However, Nys and Roger-Vasselin did make the break in the third game before an immediate response from Arneodo and Hembert in the next game. However, it was the latter’s error, a double double fault that gifted Nys and Roger-Vasselin the ninth game. They then held to take the first set.
An over-watering of the clay delayed the start of the second set, but it looked as though the prolonged break had not allowed Arneodo and Hembert to regain their composure. Three break points were gifted, but all were passed up. The crowd rose and, with the hold of service, provided a discernible momentum shift. Arneodo and Roger-Vasselin would carve out a break point of their oen in the fourth game, only to pass it up. Roger-Vasselin looked uneasy on his serve throughout, and a double-fault in his next service game saw Nys and Roger-Vasselin seize control of the second set.
In a repeat of the first set, Arneodo and Hembert immediately broke back and would take the set on a tie break (7-3). However, an error from Hembert, two consecutive double faults gave Nys and Roger-Vasselin the advantage and the momentum in the final set; Arneodo and Hembert would not recover and bow out.
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Photo credit: Luke Entwistle, Monaco Life
