Rafael Nadal will not be playing in the Monte Carlo Masters this year, but he is set to maintain a record forever in the tournament’s history besides winning 11 titles there and earning above $8 million from them. Players have generally struggled to beat him in this tournament. No player has beaten him before the quarterfinals, except one. It was not his biggest rivals, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, but Argentina’s Guillermo Coria.
Guillermo Coria often featured in the top 10 of the ATP rankings in the men’s singles category in the early 2000s. He was especially good on clay courts, similar to Nadal. Coria was considered the best player in the world on the surface by many fans back then before Rafael Nadal got that moniker more deservedly so.
At the 2003 Monte Carlo Masters, when Coria reached the finals, he faced Rafael Nadal in the Round of 16. Guillermo Coria defeated Rafael Nadal 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, with that match not indicating what was to come in later years. In 2003, Nadal wasn’t yet the force he was on the surface. He was just 16 and starting out on the ATP Tour. But the Spaniard still put up a great fight to get the first set into a tie-break against Coria.
Eventually, Coria’s skill and experience worked in his favor as Nadal lost some big points, which proved costly for him. However, that defeat made the 22-time Grand Slam champion retrospect deeply into what went wrong on his favorite surface and bounce back.
Incredibly, the 2003 match remains the only time in the history of the Monte Carlo Masters when Rafael Nadal lost before reaching the quarterfinals. It proved to be only match Coria beat Nadal in on the ATP Tour because after that, the Spaniard went on to win all their 4 clashes, even though they did go right down to the wire. In Monte Carlo itself, Nadal beat Coria twice.
The first was in the 2005 final, due to which Nadal announced himself to the world and kicked off an impressive 81-match winning streak on clay, a record that has till date not been bettered by anyone in men’s tennis. While in 2006, it was a rematch of that final in the quarterfinals, and Nadal came out on top, ofcourse by then being a far stronger player and a Grand Slam champion.
Rafael Nadal will be biggest miss at Monte Carlo Masters 2024
After months of speculations regarding the Spaniard’s return to tennis with the clay season, the 22-time Grand Slam winner has finally announced that he won’t be participating in the Monte Carlo Masters in 2024. After Nadal pulled out of the Australian Open, followed by the Indian Wells, and then the Miami Open, fans were hopeful of his return in the Monte Carlo Masters.
The reason is the same as was with Indian Wells and Miami Open, which is, that his body still needs time to heal properly.
“These are very difficult moments for me, sporting wise. Unfortunately I have to tell you that I am not going to be playing in Monte Carlo. My body simply won’t allow me. Even if I am working hard & making the maximum effort every day with all the will to play and compete again at tournaments that have been very important for me, the truth is that I can’t play today,” Nadal wrote on X.
With around a month-and-a-half left for the French Open to begin, fans are now questioning if Rafael Nadal will recover properly before the 2nd Grand Slam of the year. But one thing seems certain, Nadal might never play a Monte Carlo Masters tournament again as he will turn 38 in 2024 and is not getting younger or fitter by the day.
