After lifting his first ATP Masters 1000 title at the BNP Paribas Open last month, Dominic Thiem enters the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters with high expectations.

The World No. 5, who reached his maiden Grand Slam final at Roland Garros last year (l. to Nadal), has lifted eight of his 12 ATP Tour titles on clay and looks set for another successful campaign on the surface this year. But the Austrian is well aware that despite his high standards, it will require his best level to succeed in a packed draw at the first Masters 1000 event of the European clay swing.

“I expect a lot, of course, like in every clay-court season… [There are] only strong tournaments and, especially here, the draw is a joke. It is so strong,” said Thiem, who will open his tournament against Slovak Martin Klizan or Argentine qualifier Federico Delbonis. “In general, the level of men’s tennis is pretty high at the moment. I think everybody has to be ‘full power on’ from the first point of every match, myself as well. That is what I will try [to do] and I hope good things are coming in this clay-court season.”

Last year, Thiem advanced to his first quarter-final at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. The Austrian star defeated current World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in three sets to reach the last eight before falling to eventual champion Rafael Nadal. One year on, Thiem shared his belief that while Nadal remains the man to beat on clay, he should also expect to face greater challenges on the surface.

“I think that as long as Rafa is playing, he will always be the top favourite for any clay-court title, but I think there are more serious challenges to him than the in past years,” Thiem said. “Sascha [Zverev is] always [a threat] and Novak is back on the top of his game and, I hope, me. There are the really young guys like Felix, I think he likes clay a lot. He played amazing in Miami and [there are] also other very young guys like Stefanos and Shapovalov. There are many challenges for Rafa.”

After strong starts to the 2019 ATP Tour season, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov occupy the top three positions in the ATP Race To Milan. When Thiem was asked to compare his abilities to theirs at a similar age, the 25-year-old heaped praise on the trio of #NextGenATP stars for their quick rise up the ATP Rankings.

“Compared to [Auger-Aliassime, Tsitsipas and Shapovalov], I was really bad at 18,” said Thiem. “They are so good already. They are already [around] the Top 20, Top 30. When I was 18, I was ranked No. 700 or something. I think time changed again. When I broke into the Top 100, I was the [second] youngest guy there.”

Following success at Indian Wells in the early stages of their partnership, Thiem is confident that the addition of former World No. 9 Nicolas Massu to his coaching team will take his game to the next level on clay. The Chilean lifted five of his six tour-level titles on the red dirt.

“I started a relationship with Nico [Massu] in Rio and Buenos Aires and then, of course, I did great practice with him before Indian Wells where I achieved this title,” said Thiem. “I was thinking it was a great relationship with him and he can add many good things to my game. He grew up on clay, it was his favourite surface. So I expect good things to happen in this relationship, on this surface and in this period of the year.”

Some things are worth the wait. Benoit Paire experienced that on Sunday at the Grand Prix Hassan II.

Four years after he last lifted a trophy on the ATP Tour, the Frenchman returned to the winners’ circle. Paire celebrated his second tour-level title with a comprehensive 6-2, 6-3 victory over Pablo Andujar in Marrakech.

It was Paire’s first crown since he defeated Tommy Robredo on the clay of Bastad in 2015. The Frenchman was clutch in the big moments in Marrakech, having rallied from a set down on two occasions, including a first-round win over Aljaz Bedene and semi-final victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Revenge was sweet for Paire, who had fallen to Andujar in the final of the ATP Challenger Tour event in Marbella, Spain, just two weeks ago. The Avignon native held a match point in that encounter, eventually conceding a set and a break lead. But this was Paire’s day, cruising to victory after one hour and six minutes.

Paire sprinted out of the gates on a sun-kissed afternoon in the Moroccan city. Having edged past countryman Tsonga in the semis, needing five match points to prevail, the Frenchman would turn in a near-flawless performance in the championship.

The 29-year-old was efficient from the back of the court throughout the encounter, not conceding a break all afternoon. He pulled ahead at 4-2 in the first set with a perfectly placed drop shot, before sealing the opener with a second break after just 32 minutes.

Andujar had converted a combined 11 break chances entering the final, but Paire refused to blink on serve, claiming 89 per cent of first serve points. And he was unflappable in the second set, striking a sublime lob of the outstretched arm of Andujar to consolidate another break for 5-2. He would close out the championship with a forehand into the open court on his first match point.

Main draw action begins on Sunday at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, with four intriguing matches kicking off the third ATP Masters 1000 event of the year.

2014 champion Stan Wawrinka returns to Court Rainer III to face Frenchman Lucas Pouille. The Swiss has reached at least the quarter-finals here on five occasions and seeks another big run in Monte-Carlo, while Pouille is looking for his first win since reaching the Australian Open semi-finals.

Ninth seed Borna Coric of Croatia and in-form Pole Hubert Hurkacz will kick off action on Court Rainer III. Coric is competing in Monte-Carlo for the fifth straight year and Hurkacz is making his first appearance at this event.

Who will win the first @FedEx #ATP Head2Head clash between these players?

— ATP Tour (@ATP_Tour) April 14, 2019

Last year’s semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov starts his week against Matteo Berrettini of Italy. The Bulgarian has reached at least the quarter-finals in three of his past six main draw appearances in Monte-Carlo.

The final main draw singles match of the day will see this year’s kings of Brazil face off. Rio Open presented by Claro champion Laslo Djere of Serbia will face Brasil Open winner Guido Pella of Argentina.

Brothers Alexander Zverev and Mischa Zverev won their first ATP 250 doubles title together two years ago in Montpellier. This February, they triumphed for the first time at an ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco. The Germans will now try add an ATP Masters 1000 trophy to their collection at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters.

The Zverev brothers will look to bounce back from opening-round defeats at Indian Wells and Miami as they pursue their third crown as a team. They will need to get past 2017 semi-finalists Romain Arneodo and Hugo Nys in a tough first-round battle.

The Zverevs are not the only brothers in the Monte-Carlo draw. World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will join forces with Marko Djokovic in Monaco for the first time, playing fourth seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in their opener. The Djokovic brothers made the Doha semi-finals together earlier this year. Last year’s Monte-Carlo winners, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, are not defending their title.

The team the American twins beat in the 2018 final, Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, will hope to go one step further in the Principality this year. The fifth seeds face Japanese Ben McLachlan and German Jan-Lennard Struff.

Top seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut lead the field. The 2016 winners, who completed the Career Grand Slam at this year’s Australian Open, own a 5-2 record at the opening ATP Masters 1000 event of the European clay swing. The Frenchmen will face Dutchmen Robin Haase and Wesley Koolhof in their opening match.

Third seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, who fell to Herbert and Mahut in the 2016 championship match, headline the second quarter of the draw. The British-Brazilian tandem will aim to secure their second trophy of the season after success at the Sydney International (d. Cabal/Farah).

In a blockbuster first-round clash, Australian Open finalists Henri Kontinen and John Peers will open their campaign against Grigor Dimitrov and Stan Wawrinka.

In the final section of the draw, the top three players in the ATP Race To Milan will look to make their mark in Monaco. #NextGenATP Canadian duo Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov will face Marrakech doubles titlist Jurgen Melzer and his countryman, Dominic Thiem, who triumphed at Indian Wells in singles.

Reigning Next Gen ATP Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas and his partner, Dutchman Matwe Middelkoop, await seventh seeds Nikola Mektic and Franko Skugor. In their third straight appearance at the event, Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo will try to advance past the quarter-finals for the first time. The second seeds open against Spanish pairing Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez.

Christian Garin is continuing to make his mark on the red clay. The Chilean advanced to his second ATP Tour clay-court final of 2019 at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship in Houston after defeating eighth seed Sam Querrey of the United States on Saturday 7-6(2), 6-2.

“The conditions today were slow and windy, which is really good for me,” said Garin. “I was really focused in the second set and I think he was a bit tired in the end, but I’m playing really well.”

The 22-year-old was two points from dropping the opening set at 5-6, but held serve and raced through the first six points of the tie-break. As Querrey’s forehand betrayed him in the latter stages of the match, Garin remained dominant on serve. The Chilean won 16 of 19 service points in the second set to advance in one hour and 23 minutes.

His road to the final hasn’t been easy. Garin was pushed to three sets in his opening match against Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay and saved five match points to defeat second seed Jeremy Chardy of France in the second round.

Garin reached his first ATP Tour final last month at the Brasil Open (l. to Pella). He also finished 2018 with a flourish by winning three straight ATP Challenger Tour titles in South America. Garin was ranked outside the Top 200 of the ATP Rankings 12 months ago, but is projected to move inside the Top 50 if he can take the title on Sunday.

He will play #NextGenATP Norwegian Casper Ruud or Colombian qualifier Daniel Elahi Galan in the championship match. Galan completed his rain-delayed quarter-final with seventh seed Jordan Thompson of Australia on Saturday and prevailed 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.

Galan, currently No. 241 in the ATP Rankings, continued to take advantage of his qualifying wild card. He upset top seed and two-time defending champion Steve Johnson of the United States in the second round.

The Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters is the first of three clay-court ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournaments, with the other two stops in May at the Mutua Madrid Open and Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.

Rafael Nadal, who made his tournament debut in 2003, will look to add to his record haul of 11 titles in Monte-Carlo and 33 at ATP Masters 1000 tournaments. Novak Djokovic, a two-time Monte-Carlo champion, can match the Spaniard’s Masters 1000 titles mark with victory this week in the Principality. Alexander Zverev, the 2018 Madrid champion, and recent Indian Wells titlist Dominic Thiem are seeded third and fourth, while Kei Nishikori returns as the fifth seed a year after his runner-up finish.

Read Preview: Djokovic, Nadal Face Challenging Draws
Take Quiz: Rafa In Monte-Carlo

Austrian Jurgen Melzer and Croatian Franko Skugor had never played together before arriving at the Grand Prix Hassan II. But they won the title on Saturday, defeating Dutchman Matwe Middelkoop and Dane Frederik Nielsen 6-4, 7-6(6) to triumph in Marrakech.

In the quarter-finals and semi-finals, Melzer and Skugor survived Match Tie-breaks to advance. But after getting broken in the first game of the final, they never looked back, saving set point in the second-set tie-break to lift the trophy after one hour and 25 minutes.

“First time playing together, I really didn’t expect much. Both of us, we have our qualities when we’re playing well. If we started the week well we knew we could do well and that’s exactly what happened,” Skugor said. “We had some tough matches at the beginning but we managed to get through somehow and at the end, as the tournament went on, we just got better and better.”

Skugor now has four ATP Tour doubles crowns. He captured three trophies last year with Brit Dominic Inglot. Melzer now owns 15 tour-level doubles titles with seven partners.

“It was a great week for us here. Thanks to Franko for playing with me,” Melzer said. “I really had a great time here in Marrakech.”

Skugor and Melzer earn 250 ATP Doubles Ranking points for their efforts and split €29,650 in prize money. Middelkoop and Nielsen fell short on their team debut, but they add 150 points and a share of €15,200.

Did You Know?
Melzer also won eight ATP Tour singles trophies, and climbed as high as eighth in the ATP Rankings in April 2011.

Frenchman Benoit Paire entered his Grand Prix Hassan II semi-final having never won a set in three FedEx ATP Head2Head matches against countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But despite Tsonga cruising through the first set and eventually leading by a break in the decider, Paire battled past the former World No. 5 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday to reach the Marrakech final, setting a clash against three-time champion Pablo Andujar.

“He played well in the beginning and I was struggling with the sun,” Paire said. “I’m very happy that I won today because this is the first time I beat him.”

Paire is into his first ATP Tour final since 2017 Metz, and he will attempt to claim his second trophy, having triumphed on the red clay of Bastad in 2015 (def. Robredo).

In the championship match, he will face a confident Andujar, who dismissed fourth seed Gilles Simon 6-1, 6-1 in just 74 minutes. Last year, as the World No. 355, Andujar became the lowest-ranked ATP Tour champion since Lleyton Hewitt in 1998. The Spaniard was battling back from three elbow surgeries, and he is currently 70th in the ATP Rankings, one spot behind Paire.

“The tournament is very strong this year with a lot of good players,” Andujar said. “My goal is to win tomorrow. After my injury I’ve always said that my goal is to be healthy. Of course I want to win tomorrow and I will give my best. I won’t be the favourite but I played well today and have nothing to lose.”

Andujar and Paire are certainly familiar foes. The Frenchman has won all three of their FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings, but Andujar saved a match point to defeat Paire for the Marbella ATP Challenger Tour title two weeks ago.

“He’s a good friend of mine and I’m happy to face him again,” Paire said. “We know each other very well. I hope that I can win this time.”

Former champion Stan Wawrinka and World No. 5 Dominic Thiem took the role of team captains in a fun-filled charity exhibition, to benefit the Monaco Red Cross, at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters on Saturday.

Alongside Wawrinka on his team of French-speaking players were Lucas Pouille, David Goffin and Daniil Medvedev. BNP Paribas Open champion Thiem was joined by Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov.

Team Stan and Team Dominic contested a Match Tie-break which featured a variety of interesting rule changes. After Pouille and Dimitrov were eliminated in the early stages, a series of two-on-one points took place before Tsitsipas and Medvedev were forced to play left-handed on Court Rainier III.

Perhaps due to his experience of playing left-handed at a young age, Tsitsipas managed to get the better of Medvedev in an extended rally. But that would not be enough for his team, which fell to a 10-7 defeat.

With two-handed backhands banned on match point, David Goffin overcame Karen Khachanov to claim victory for Wawrinka’s team.

Goffin also played a crucial role in the target-based skills game that followed. With players aiming to hit three targets with just three service attempts, Goffin secured a 3-0 win for Team Stan. The 2017 Nitto ATP Finals runner-up was the only player to strike any of the targets.

The Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the season’s first ATP Masters 1000 event on clay, is almost here. But before we usher in another European clay-court swing, ATPTour.com remembers five highlights from the 2018 edition.

1. Rafa Rafa’d. Again.
Stop us if you’ve read this before: Rafael Nadal won the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. By now, you’ve heard or read that line 11 times as last year the Spaniard became the first male to win an ATP Tour tournament 11 times.

Nadal also became the outright Masters 1000 titles leader with 31 (he now has 33), breaking his tie with Serbian Novak Djokovic (who now has 32). At the time, Nadal had won a career-best 36 consecutive sets on clay. His flawless run through the Monte-Carlo field marked the fifth time he had won the tournament without dropping a set (2008-10, 2012, 2018).

Watch: Rafa Wins 11th Monte-Carlo Title

It was a foreshadowing event for the Spaniard, who would continue making history during the clay season. Nadal also won his 11^th titles at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell (d. Tsitsipas) and Roland Garros (d. Thiem). Another massive clay-court haul helped the Spaniard finish at No. 2 in the year-end ATP Rankings.

2. Nishikori Launches Return To Nitto ATP Finals
Kei Nishikori produced the most unexpected result of the season’s first clay-court Masters 1000 event. The Japanese reached his fourth Masters 1000 final – and his second on clay – before falling to Nadal.

It was only his second time playing at the event, and two months earlier, Nishikori, still on the comeback from right-wrist surgery, was lifting the trophy at the RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas, an indoor ATP Challenger Tour event.

But Nishikori beat Tomas Berdych, Sydney International titlist Daniil Medvedev, second seed Marin Cilic and Germany’s Alexander Zverev to reach his first final since February 2017 (Argentina Open, l. to Dolgopolov). He’d end his season by making his fourth trip to the Nitto ATP Finals, and his first big result came in Monte-Carlo.

Watch: Nishikori Reaches Monte-Carlo Final

3. The Bryan Brothers Returned To Top Form
Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan were the doubles team to beat as the clay-court season began in earnest in the Principality. The Bryans won their second consecutive Masters 1000 title and their 38^th overall by knocking off the reigning Australian Open champions Oliver Marach/Mate Pavic.

But their season would break down during the Mutua Madrid Open final, when the American twins had to retire for the first time in 1,407 matches as a team because of a right hip injury for Bob. The left-handed twin wouldn’t take the court again until January 2019, but Mike continued their winning ways with Jack Sock, taking Wimbledon, the US Open and the Nitto ATP Finals.

And the Bryans are back in form again. While they will not compete in Monte-Carlo, the Americans just won their sixth Miami title.

Watch: Bryans Win Monte-Carlo Doubles Title

4. Djokovic Showed Signs Of Progress
This was progress for Novak Djokovic in April 2018: The two-time Monte-Carlo champion pushed Dominic Thiem to three sets before losing in the third round at his home Masters 1000 event.

It was certainly an improvement from where he left off at the Miami Open presented by Itau, losing his opener to Frenchman Benoit Paire. The Serbian, however, had laid the foundation for another record-breaking season.

In Miami, he played pain-free for the first time in nearly two and a half years, and in Monte-Carlo, he reunited with longtime coach Marian Vajda. Djokovic reached the Fever-Tree Championships final and won Wimbledon in July to show the tennis world he was back.

He’d climb from No. 22 to No. 1 to finish at the pinnacle of the year-end ATP Rankings for the fifth time (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018).

Watch Hot Shot: Djokovic Unleashes

5. Zverev Started Where He Left Off On Clay
Zverev didn’t take home another Masters 1000 title on clay, but the German was showing close to his best level as the European clay-court season began. Zverev made the semi-finals in Monte-Carlo (l. to Nishikori) and improved to 17-7 on the season.

He’d bring that form the rest of the clay-court stretch as well. Zverev repeated as champion at the BMW Open By FWU in Munich, won his third Masters 1000 title at the Mutua Madrid Open (d. Thiem) and made his first Grand Slam quarter-final at Roland Garros.

Watch: Zverev Reflects On QF Win