Stat of the Day: Hubert Hurkacz battles to 50th Masters 1000 win of career in Monte Carlo

Hubert Hurkacz dug out a nail-biting 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) victory over Serbia’s Laslo Djere in the first round of the Rolex Monte Carlo Masters on Sunday, and the victory was a major milestone—the 50th Masters win of his career.

He’s the first Polish man ever to reach that milestone.

“Laslo was playing really well today. It was a super tough battle and I was very fortunate at the end," Hurkacz said afterwards.

"I’m happy to go through.”

Hurkacz was points away—and at one point, a point away—from losing several times in the three-hour, 18-minute battle.

He was three points away from losing serving at 3-5, 0-15 in the second set, and two points from losing three separate times in the next game as Djere served for it against the world No. 12.

There were all kinds of momentum shifts in the third set, too. First, Hurkacz had four match points—one at 5-3 with Djere serving, then three more at 5-4 with him serving. Djere saved them all and ended up winning three straight games to go up 6-5, where Hurkacz then faced a match point at 30-40 while serving to stay in the match—he blasted it away with an ace.

The two eventually headed to a third set tie-break where Hurkacz finally closed it out when Djere made a rare backhand miss.

Hurkacz’s level kept getting better throughout the match—in the first set he had 7 winners to 18 unforced errors, while across the next two sets he had a much more even 28 to 29.

Djere was one of the tricker first-round match-ups the No. 12-ranked Pole could have had, too—a former Top 30 player, the Serb has five career wins over Top 20 players, including four on clay.

Before becoming the first Polish man to record 50 career wins at Masters 1000 events, Hurkacz was already the first Polish man ever to win a Masters 1000, doing that in Miami in 2021. Before that, the best Masters 1000 result by a Polish player was Jerzy Janowicz reaching the final in Paris in 2012, where he fell to David Ferrer.

Up next for Hurkacz in Monte Carlo: Sebastian Baez or Jack Draper.