Novak Djokovic’s latest bid to win a 100th career title ended Wednesday in another surprising defeat to a familiar face.
Alejandro Tabilo, who handed the 24-time Grand Slam champion a surprising loss at the Italian Open last year, beat Djokovic 6-3, 6-4 in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters.
“It has been a tough year, so a little bit of the nerves were there,” Tabilo said in an on-court interview. “I remembered last time what I did well, and thankfully I served well today and it helped me a lot. It was an unreal match.”
Tabilo, 27, has yet to drop a set against Djokovic. He joined Marat Safin and Jiri Vesely as the only players to have faced Djokovic more than once and not lost; all three hold a 2-0 record over Djokovic.
A Monte Carlo title would have made Djokovic the only player to win each Masters event at least three times.
“I expected myself at least to have put in a decent performance. Not like this, it was horrible,” said Djokovic, who made 29 unforced errors. “I did not have high expectations. I knew I’m going to have a tough opponent, and I knew I’m going to probably play pretty bad. But this bad, I didn’t expect.
“I was hoping it was not going to happen, but it was quite a high probability I’m going to play this way. … A horrible feeling to play this way. Just sorry for all the people that have to witness this.”
Djokovic, who recently lost the Miami Open final to Jakub Mensik, turns 38 next month — shortly before the French Open starts May 25.
Defending French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz started his clay-court season by rallying to a 3-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory over Francisco Cerundolo in the second round.
The second-seeded Alcaraz was coming off a surprising loss to Belgian veteran David Goffin in his first match at the Miami Open.
Another upset seemed possible when Cerundolo, ranked No. 22, took the first set, but Alcaraz dominated the rest of the match and converted five of his seven break points across the second and third sets.
Alcaraz is seeking a second title of 2025 and to fine-tune his clay-court game ahead of a bid to retain his title at Roland Garros.
Lorenzo Musetti, the 13th seed, beat Jiri Lehecka 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 to set up a third-round match against fellow Italian Matteo Berrettini, who beat top-seeded Alexander Zverev on Tuesday.
Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils, a pair of 38-year-old Frenchmen, were eliminated by Daniel Altmaier and seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev, respectively.
The Monte Carlo Masters is the first big clay-court tournament of the year on the ATP Tour.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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