Bob Larson's Tennis News | Monte-Carlo Sunday Summary

Singles - Final: (2) R Nadal def. (1) N Djokovic 6-3 6-1
Would you believe that a Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic match could take only one hour and eighteen minutes? This one did. It was close for about five games, but then it was over. Nadal won 71% of the points in the second set, and cruised through to title #8 here.
Hard to believe that it is Nadal's first title of the year. But then, it's also his first clay tournament.... In fact, it's his first title since Roland Garros 2011, which was his last clay tournament before this.
Still, his 22-3 record this year (22-4 if you could his Miami semifinal as a loss) isn't bad at all. He has one title, one final (Australian Open), and three semifinals (Doha, Indian Wells, Miami). His three losses are to Monfils, Djokovic, and Federer.
It's interesting to look at the Race numbers for the Top Twelve so far this year (not counting Davis Cup):
Djokovic: 4140
Nadal: 3010
Federer 2855
Murray: 2060
Ferrer: 1595
del Potro: 1405
Berdych: 1375
Isner: 1065
Tsonga: 1060
Almagro: 1030
Tipsarevic: 735
Fish: 315
Djokovic obviously has a substantial lead even in this, but his lead in the rankings is 3500 points -- and we've been playing mostly on Djokovic surfaces so far. Frankly, this year looks as if it could be a lot more interesting than Djokovic wanted.

Singles - Final: (1) Bryan/Bryan def. (2) Mirnyi/Nestor 6-2 6-3
The Bryans had been cruising all week, and Mirnyi/Nestor struggling. Obviously that continued in the final, which took less than an hour. It was definitely a good time for the brothers to win their first title since Sydney, and their twentieth Masters title; as we mentioned yesterday, they would have lost the #1 rankings had they lost this. As it is, we show the Top Four as follows:
1..(1) Bryan..............9430
1..(1) Bryan..............9430
3..(3) Mirnyi.............9060
3..(3) Nestor.............9060
The Race is even more interesting. Paes/Stepanek came in as the #1 team, and they're still there, but not by all that much. And the contest between Mirnyi/Nestor and the Bryans is a nailbiter. Mirnyi/Nestor had a 390 point lead coming in. Since a title here is worth 400 more points than a final, the Bryans are now ahead of their chief rivals by all of ten points. It's quite possible that we will have a three-way contest for the year-end #1.