After losing the first set, Djokovic was twice behind with a break in the back and forth in the second section. Although the favorite then saved himself in the decisive third set, he didn’t manage to turn the game around. On the contrary: The set went to the Spaniard without much resistance, after 2:54 hours the game was over.
Only played one tournament before Monte Carlo
“It will take some time and some matches to really get going,” Djokovic had previously conceded. “The past four or five months have been really challenging for me, mentally and emotionally.” Because of the lack of vaccination against the corona virus, Djokovic was not allowed to take part in the hard court tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami in the USA. A start at the Australian Open at the beginning of the season he could not assert himself and had to leave Melbourne again in January after a legal tug of war. His only tournament before Monte Carlo this year was in Dubai.
In Monte Carlo, after Djokovic’s exit, Hamburg’s Alexander Zverev is the highest-ranked player in the field. The Olympic champion takes on Argentinian Federico Delbonis on Wednesday.
Source: dpa