Photo Source: TTV
Novak Djokovic was looking to build off his momentum from Miami in Monte-Carlo, but the surface change tripped up the Grand Slam king once again.
On a chilly afternoon in Monte-Carlo, Djokovic was upset by Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo, 6-3, 6-4, to suffer his earliest loss at the first clay-court Masters of the season since 2022.
Tabilo, who defeated Djokovic at Rome last year, has now won all four sets he has played against the 24-time major champion.
“Thank God I served well today,” said Tabilo on court after his win.
The Chilean did many things well, in fact, and Djokovic struggled to dial in his serve as he sprayed too many errors. In total, Djokovic made 29 unforced errors on the day, 18 of them coming from the forehand side. He hit 18 winners in total, and surrendered three breaks of serve, while making just 54 percent of his first serves.
It was an auspicious beginning for the 37-year-old, who broke in the first game of the match, but that lead was quickly erased in the next game, and Tabilo, who hit 16 winners against 16 unforced errors on the day, broke again for 4-2 in set one.
Tabilo served out the set without any fuss and stayed on the hunt, breaking for 2-1 in set two.
Djokovic had a pair of break points to level at four-all, but could not convert. In the next game Djokovic bravely saved a match point with a picture-perfect drop shot, but Tabilo did not falter when it was his time to serve out the match.
The 27-year-old World No.32 converted his first match point to close out his second career Top-10 win.
Djokovic quickly came into the press room after the loss and explained that he had low expectations for his first clay match since winning the gold medal in Paris last year.
"I expected myself at least to have put a decent performance," he said. "Not like this. It was horrible. I did not have high expectations, really. I knew I'm gonna have a tough opponent and I knew I'm gonna probably play pretty bad. But this bad, I didn't expect."
A season that started with six consecutive losses is looking much better for Tabilo, after he recorded consecutive wins for the first time since last summer.
“It’s been a tough year, so the nerves were there,” Tabilo said. “I just tried to remember the last time and what I did well… it was an unreal match."
Tabilo improves to 4-9 on the season, and will face either Grigor Dimitrov or Valentin Vacherot in the round of 16.
“It’s been some tough times, personally,” he said. “But we’ve been trying to take care of it. Match by match we’ve been getting a little bit looser and I’m just so happy that I’m feeling better.”
Fifth-ranked Djokovic, who reached the semifinals at Monte-Carlo last year, broke the record for most Monte-Carlo main draw appearances with 18, passing Rafael Nadal and Fabrice Santoro. He drops to 12-6 on the season and 39-16 overall at Monte-Carlo.