Goffin, Simon Make Confident Starts In Monte-Carlo

Tenth seed David Goffin left no room for sentiment on Sunday at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters when he overcame fellow Belgian Steve Darcis 6-2, 6-1 in 72 minutes. Goffin, who also beat his compatriot at the Garanti Koza Sofia Open in February, lost just three of his second service points (18/21) for his 20th match win of the season.

“I played well from the start,” said Goffin, who will next play Nicolas Almagro or a qualifier. “We had long rallies [and] I was solid. I made him run a lot. I was playing very well tactically. I was playing the right way. I was able to protect my serve with my second serve. I was very solid. I’m very happy with that. It’s never easy to play against a friend. Lately I’ve been playing those matches pretty well. They are special matches.”

Former World No. 6 Gilles Simon, who advanced to the 2012 semi-finals (l. to Nadal), broke a two-match losing streak in beating Malek Jaziri 6-2, 6-2 in 81 minutes. He will now challenge second seed Novak Djokovic, the 2013 and 2015 champion in the second round. Djokovic leads Simon 10-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.

Elsewhere, Joao Sousa hit six aces past Florian Mayer in a 6-3, 6-2 win and now awaits the result of No. 16 seed Pablo Cuevas or Viktor Troicki.

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Adrian Mannarino, Jan-Lennard Struff, Martin Klizan, Carlos Berlocq, Andrey Kuznetsov, Renzo Olivo and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez all qualified on Sunday for the main draw of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 clay-court tournament.