Brkic/Cacic Overcome Felix/Wawrinka

Tomislav Brkic and Nikola Cacic ruined Stan Wawrinka’s return to Tour Sunday as they defeated the Swiss star and Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-4 to reach the second round at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

The Serbian-Bosnian pair has advanced to semi-finals in Adelaide and Buenos Aires this season and found their best level against Auger-Aliassime and Wawrinka, saving the one break point they faced to advance after 62 minutes.

They will next play Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer after the eighth seeds defeated Alex de Minaur and Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-3 in 71 minutes. Arevalo and Rojer will be aiming to win their third tour-level trophy of the year this week, having captured titles in Dallas and Delray Beach as a team.

Fifth seeds Tim Puetz and Michael Venus soared to their third tour-level crown together in Dubai in February and started their Monte Carlo campaign by edging past Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev 4-6, 7-5, 10-5.

Puetz and Venus rallied from 3-5 in the second set as they raised their level in the key moments to advance after one hour and 36 minutes.

The final doubles match of the day saw Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev down singles stars Hubert Hurkacz and Jannik Sinner 6-4, 6-3.

World No. 3 Zverev will be attempting to win both the singles and doubles titles in Monte Carlo this week, with the German starting his singles bid against Jaume Munar or Federico Delbonis.