Stupendous Stefanos TSITSIPAS seals third Monte-Carlo Masters title in four years, triumphs over Casper RUUD

Stefanos Tsitsipas is once again the champion at the Monte-Carlo Masters after taking down fellow clay court artist, Casper Ruud on Sunday afternoon in Monaco. In a 6-1, 6-4 win for the Greek, it marks his third crown in the Monégasque region in four years.

Tsitsipas won the title in 2021 and 2022 and only saw his dominance snapped by Andrey Rublev last year who fell early in the opening round in his title defence. Holger Rune who reached the final didn't fare much better after downing Grigor Dimitrov, he fell to Jannik Sinner in an epic clash and gained more headlines after for his Twitter rants.

But Tsitsipas who has had a form slump in the past 12 months seems to find his effortless best at Monte-Carlo and a player who fell out of the top 10 recently, he will now return and head towards Madrid and Rome with a potential Roland Garros outsider feel. Ruud too who took down Novak Djokovic has had a superb week.

After losing out to Pedro Martinez in his Estoril Open title defence, he has found the magic clay court formula again which saw him continue to rise up the rankings in particular through playing European Clay. After his disappointment in Portugal given his clay court stature, he will take positives from this week.

Truthfully though, the story went from the awful to the sublime as Ruud struggled during the opening juncture. Perhaps a hangover from his win over Novak Djokovic yesterday or perhaps the legacy of a truly epic opening set from Tsitsipas. Either way, the opening set really told the story like an artist on a canvas as Tsitsipas led 2-1 with a break of serve. Ruud had chances on Tsitsipas' serve, but a theme that became common was the Greek's gritty repost as he saved three and went 3-1 up.

He broke again at 4-1 and then 6-1 with the latter seeing Ruud go 30-15 up in a bid to save the set, but one that he failed in. Tsitsipas went ahead after an awesome opener albeit the second was a lot more close. Again it was the story of Tsitsipas saving break points as Ruud had the chances in a game that could've been so different as Tsitsipas went 2-1 up. They both continued to save their serve until the bitter end as perhaps the death knockings came at 4-3 to Tsitsipas in which he saved three break points and neither troubled each others serve again until the Greek rubber stamped his win with a break to seal the title. Stupendous from Stefanos Tsitsipas.