Preview: Are Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner primed to meet for the Monte Carlo title?

Jannik Sinner vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas

A big part of Sinner’s leap upward over the past year has been his ability to beat opponents like Tsitsipas. From 2019 until the start of 2023, the Greek was 5-1 against the Italian. The last of those wins was the most significant: A five-setter in the round of 16 at the 2023 Australian Open. Tsitsipas won it and went on to reach the final, while Sinner went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out how to stop losing close matches at big events.

As we know now, he succeed, perhaps beyond his wildest dreams. Just a few weeks after Melbourne, Sinner beat Tsitsipas in straight sets in Rotterdam, and he did it again at the ATP Finals, also in straight sets, in Turin. He beat Tsitsipas the way he has beaten everyone else recently: By cutting down on his errors without sacrificing any of his power or aggression.

While a dialed-in Sinner has risen to No. 2 in 2024, a mostly-floundering Tsitsipas has fallen to No. 12. But a return to his favorite surface, clay, and one of his favorite locations, Monte Carlo, where he’s a two-time champion, has energized him. On Thursday, he beat No. 5 seed Alexander Zverev, and followed it up on Friday with a straight-set win over Karen Khachanov.

“He loves the conditions here,” Sinner says of Tsitsipas.

Right now, though, Sinner loves any type of condition you throw at him. After winning in Miami on hard courts last month, he hasn’t missed a beat back in his hometown. On Friday, Holger Rune challenged him, saved match points, and pushed him to a third. But Sinner showed the same calm assurance he has shown all season in winning a tense deciding set.

Sinner says Friday’s semi will be a “completely different day, completely different opponent.” Where Rune bruised his way forward with a muscular game anchored by a two-hand backhand, Tsitsipas looks to run around his one-hander and crack as many forehands as possible.

The opponent is different, but Sinner will be the same. He’s 25-1 in 2024, and hasn’t given us any reason to believe he’ll lose another match this week, either. Winner: Sinner

Novak Djokovic vs. Casper Ruud

All the numbers are on Djokovic’s side, from Grand Slam wins to career-high ranking to Monte Carlo titles—the list could very well be endless. But that’s true for everyone he faces. Against Ruud, there’s another one-sided statistic that stands out even more: 5-0. That’s the Serb’s record against the Norwegian.

Actually, the numbers are even worse then they appear: In those five matches, Djokovic hasn’t dropped a set—he’s 11-0. Does that mean Ruud, a three-time Grand Slam finalist, is due for a breakthrough, especially since this is his favorite surface, and Djokovic’s least-favorite? Or is beating one of the Big 3 just a mental hurdle too far for the mild-mannered Scandinavian?

Ruud may be playing the better tennis this week. He dropped a set to Ugo Humbert on Friday, but overall he’s been striking the ball well. That has only been partially true of Djokovic. The top seed, who hasn’t reached a semifinal here since he won the title back in 2015, has beaten two good opponents in Alex De Minaur and Lorenzo Musetti. But on Friday he agreed with De Minaur that their quarterfinal had been “ugly.”

“A lot of unforced errors and just dropped service games back to back to back,” Djokovic said of their second set.

Still, he couldn’t have expected to be fully polished this early in the clay season. The point was to get matches, and he’s done that. But many times in the past he has followed an ugly performance or a difficult win with something much cleaner and more clinical. Can we expect that against Ruud? Until proven otherwise, we can at least expect a win. Winner: Djokovic