Tennis Briefing: Tsitsipas thrives on clay — but what’s up with the line calls?

Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind the stories from the last week on court.

This week, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud reached the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters final by knocking out Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic respectively — the best male player in the world on current form, and the second-best male clay-court player of the last 25 years.

Tsitsipas had one win in seven against top-20 players; Ruud had a 0-5 record against Djokovic. But these are two players who find their feet when their shoes are stained orange, with Tsitsipas triumphing 6-1, 6-4 for a third Monte Carlo title after victories in 2021 and 2022.

This a welcome reminder that even at the highest echelons, surface mastery and game style can counterbalance matchups that otherwise look a little like a weight imbalance on a seesaw.

Meanwhile, Emma Raducanu helped Katie Boulter and Great Britain to the Billie Jean King Cup finals; tennis officials made tracks for London; and clay line calls continued to cause controversy.

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Back to the grind?

As The Athletic’s very own Matthew Futterman predicted, Tsitsipas recovered some form in Monte Carlo — fitting for a player who values the cleansing imagery in a freshly swept court.

The Greek has been pedestrian for more than a year. Two straight-sets losses in the first half of 2023 seemed to do lasting damage: the defeat in the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic and the beating from Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-final of the French Open. More than any other player, Tsitsipas seemed caught off guard by the young Spaniard’s takeover of the sport in 2022. He had been the one who was going to bring joy and style to the top of the game, yet there was Carlitos coming to steal the show.

He also fell in love for the first time, with Paula Badosa, the Spanish star, which his father and coach, Apostolous, said recently has understandably taken up some headspace. When he fell out of the top 10 earlier this year, there was plenty of chatter about whether he was headed for the wilderness.

Tsitsipas didn’t lose hope, especially with the approach of the clay season, his favorite time of year. His win Sunday sent him back into the top 10 and will no doubt serve as a major confidence boost.

In March, he said in an interview that he was trying to rediscover “my big game” — the serve/forehand combination that reaches its apotheosis on clay, where he moves so naturally when he finds his rhythm. That was all there in Monte Carlo, where he beat three top 10 players.

GO DEEPER

My game in my words. By Stefanos Tsitsipas

That said, Tsitsipas wants more than one good week out of the red brick, and he knows how much work he has ahead of him to reach the standards set by Sinner, Djokovic and Alcaraz. Andrey Rublev won Monte Carlo last year; he still hasn’t made it past the quarter-final of a Grand Slam.

He collapsed on the court…