Carlos Alcaraz has clarified why he was \u201csurprised\u201d that Jannik Sinner decided to compete at the 2026 Monte Carlo Masters.<\/p>\n
The seven-time major champion crushed 65th-ranked Sebastian Baez 6-1, 6-3 in his opening match at the Monte Carlo Country Club on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Spaniard is the defending champion at the Masters 1000 tournament, having secured his maiden title in the Principality last year.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Alcaraz<\/a> is the top seed in Monte Carlo, while his biggest rival Sinner<\/a> is the No 2 seed.<\/p>\n Sinner, who is chasing his first Monte Carlo crown, cruised to a 6-3, 6-0 win over world No 34 Ugo Humbert in his opener on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The 24-year-old Italian has won 13 straight matches and 26 consecutive sets, having triumphed in Indian Wells and Miami in March to complete the Sunshine Double.<\/p>\n \u2018I am going to lose No 1 of the world\u2019 \u2013 Carlos Alcaraz makes surprise admission<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz reveals what he \u2018regrets\u2019 saying ahead of Monte Carlo Masters title defence<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Prior to his first match, Alcaraz admitted he did not expect Sinner to play at the season\u2019s first clay-court Masters event.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I was surprised that Jannik, after Indian Wells, Miami, and the whole tour, came to Monte Carlo to play, but obviously that speaks to the great physical condition he\u2019s in right now, what he\u2019s capable of,\u201d said Alcaraz.<\/p>\n In his press conference after his win against Baez, Alcaraz was asked why he was surprised by Sinner\u2019s presence in Monte Carlo.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I mean, I just think a lot of things ahead of\u2026 it feels like we\u2019re guessing, the players, which tournaments they\u2019re gonna play sometimes,\u201d Alcaraz explained.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, he was successful in Indian Wells, Miami \u2014 a lot of matches, a long swing. And from the last day in Miami until the first day here, it\u2019s like one week, I would say.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019re coming from different time difference, different surface, different everything. Different balls. So it\u2019s tricky when you don\u2019t have that much time to prepare yourself for another surface, another kind of play, another tournament, another environment I would say.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s up to him obviously, and it\u2019s the decision of every player to go to one tournament or other. So if he decided to come here, that means that he feels good physically, feels good mentally, and he\u2019s excited to come here.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I was surprised because he has a lot of matches in the last month, playing on hard-court and not having that much time to rest, time to prepare on clay.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we could see that he\u2019s playing doubles, he played great today. So that means the great player he is because he adapts himself really good in such a short period of time from one surface to others.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: WATCH: Daniil Medvedev obliterates his racket in astonishing 49-minute Monte Carlo Masters loss<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Carlos Alcaraz reveals why he did not expect Jannik Sinner to play Monte Carlo Masters<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz has clarified why he was \u201csurprised\u201d that Jannik Sinner decided to compete at the 2026 Monte Carlo Masters. The seven-time major champion crushed 65th-ranked Sebastian Baez 6-1, 6-3 in his opening match at the Monte Carlo Country Club on Tuesday. The 22-year-old Spaniard is the defending champion at the Masters 1000 tournament, having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n