It was a strange day in Monte Carlo. It started off with Murray, who has struggled quite a bit in previous matches, only giving two games to Milos Raonic in a 6-2 6-0 slaughter. Hard to say what happened, but Murray had a day where everything went right. With his return and great defense he should be a difficult opponent for Raonic on clay, but the scoreline was unexpected to say the least.
Surely, Wawrinka was going to give Nadal a longer run for his money? Well, not by much! Like I mentioned in my predictions post to this round, I thought Nadal would win since Wawrinka has had trouble with him in the past (loopy balls towards a one-handed-backhand – yeah, we’ve seen that before), but I didn’t think it would be as easy as 6-1 6-4. But Nadal was sharp and Wawrinka lacked the confidence to pull through. Nadal is now my overwhelming favourite for the title, which would mean he would be tied with Djokovic with 28 Masters titles.
In the third match of the day Tsonga met a Federer who had said he felt a bit tired in the press conference the day before. It’s rare for players to admit “weakness” before a match, but when you have been on the tour for as long as Federer has, you can allow a bit of honesty. However tired he was, Federer started out winning the first set, but with a performance that felt a bit up-and-down. Tsonga came back strong to take the second with his trademark energetic play and the third became a nail-biter. Watching it, all you could feel was that Tsonga wanted it a little bit more and had more energy than Federer. It was tight, but Tsonga winning in three wasn’t that unexpected with Federer being off tennis for a while. Still, not a bad start to the clay season for the Swiss.
The fourth match was not maybe the one the spectators looked most forward to. Granollers is a rarity in these kind of matches and it showed. Monfils took charge and dominated and won 6-2 6-4 which sets him up for the all French affair with Tsonga. They way LaMonf has been playing actually makes me think he’s the favourite!
My semi-final predictions in Monte Carlo 2016:
Murray vs Nadal (6-16 H2H) Nadal’s confidence, like so many others, grows by winning and his win against Wawrinka sure must have been inspiring. I think he has more energy and definitely more firepower than Murray at the moment. If Andy takes a set, he should be happy, but I don’t think he does. Bookies give around 1.40 on Nadal and 3.00 in odds for Murray to win.
Monfils vs Tsonga (2-5). Tsonga played great against Federer, but he can be streaky at times. However, Monfils is not known to be the most stable player either, but he has found a new calm and focus in 2016, I believe. It’s a bit of an upset, but I think Monfils will win this one in three. Bookies give 1.80 on Monfils and 2.00 for Tsonga so I’m not completely alone in believing in Monfils.
