Monte Carlo Masters 2026 PREVIEW & PREDICTIONS | Monday Match Analysis

**Gill Gross** (0:01)
Welcome, everyone, to Monday Match Analysis. I'm Gill Gross, and it is time for a preview of the 2026 Rolex Monte Carlo Masters. Clay season is here. It is a joyous occasion. It's always a great time. And it's a fantastic way to start it off, always, with this Monte Carlo tournament, the most picturesque stop on the tour in that traditional Masters 1000 format, the old school way, 56 player draw, top 8 players get buys. Very excited to get into the quarter by quarter preview, as always. But first, there are a couple of other things I want to talk about, beginning with a follow up on Balki. Some of you may remember Balki was a fantasy tennis app that I promoted ahead of the Australian Open and ahead of Indian Wells. I'm going to follow up on what's happening with Balki, at least as best I can, because there's a lot I don't know. But just to kind of take you back, I have long thought, I mean two, two and a half years ago, I think I threw it out in a video at a certain point in time, that there's a missed opportunity in tennis for gamification, especially in a sport where a bracket comes out every week or a draw comes out every week. And people so enjoy the process of predictions and picks, even if it's just for fun, even if there's no money on the line. Friendly competition. And in the US, you draw obvious parallels to the NCAA basketball tournament in which bracketology has become an absolute beast of a phenomenon, something that almost everybody participates, even non-sports fans participate in bracketology. And here I am within this tennis internet ecosystem thinking where is this for tennis? Why isn't this a thing for tennis? So I've had over the years various people actually start projects for me where they're looking to develop an app or something in which I can engage my community in some sort of way in this arena. And all of those projects have fallen through. And then probably like a year and a half ago, this actually was a pretty long time ago, this company called Bulk, he reached out to me and was like, well, we have this app already and we're doing American football and we're doing soccer on it and we want to do it in tennis as well. And I'm like, all right, well, you know what? This is probably good because at least it's already, it's already made, it's out there, it has real developers. I know it's going to be a real thing. So over the course of a year and a half, we sort of went back and forth and I advised them on how to create sort of a fantasy tennis game that I thought would be fun to play for everybody and a way to engage my community and then hopefully beyond my community at some point or another.
And we created a partnership. It wasn't very financial in nature. I wasn't getting paid for it, although there was some stuff down the road that could have come into effect. And then basically midway through Indian Wells, the app stopped working and I have not heard from them. So this is where my information on what's going on is very limited. I don't know what happened, but I think it's safe to assume Bulkie is not going to be a thing. I hope everyone's okay over there. More likely than not, they probably just axed the project and they haven't been communicative with me. So Bulkie's gone. I apologize for that, I guess, even though it's not really my fault. The funny thing is this week, coincidentally, the ATP has launched its own fantasy tennis game.
I was not a genius for the last three years thinking that this is something that should get done. And I've even reached out to other podcasts and I've been like, hey, can we do this together? Like, let's bring everybody together and do this. Well, the ATP, they have made a move here. So for now, let's just do that. I have signed up. I have made a league. It's called Monday Match Analysis. The code to join the league, it's through the ATP website. So it's very official. It's not going to shut down and go belly up on us. The code will be in the description to join the Monday Match Analysis Fantasy League so that we can all compete against each other. And you guys can either show how much smarter you are than me. All right. I thought it was worth just going through all that. Let's talk Monte Carlo. It is of the clay tournaments. It generally reads as the slowest. It's windy and it is slow. The ball is going to lose a ton of energy on the court surface. And the real sort of natural clay quarters, especially because there's less time for the less natural players to even make that adjustment and to get comfortable again on the dirt, the real natural clay quarters are usually going to do pretty well at this tournament. I also want to say before we go quarter by quarter, this is a pretty significantly weakened field based on just withdrawal. So I'm going to go down the list right now. It's Djokovic, Fritz, Draper, Davidovic, Vakina, Feis, Munnar, Korda. And then a few Americans didn't sign up. Shelton, Tommy, Paul, a couple others. So, there are plenty of players who you would normally expect to see in a Masters 1000 tournament that we will not be seeing. And some of them would have been sort of like legitimate considerations to make deep runs, especially some of the names I mentioned towards the top of that list. So a bit of an opportunity for everybody else. Let's go to Carlos Alcaraz, the number one seed. His other top seeds are Bublek, Laheczka, and Tieffo. Short lists because there are only 16 seeds in this format. Isn't it nice? Great first round matches right away. I personally love it. My dark horse here is Alejandro Tabilo. My upset alert is Francis Tieffo. My early popcorn is Alcaraz against the winner of Baez and Vavrenka. I promise I'm not being paid by Alejandro Tabilo. I'm not in his payroll. Okay, that is, you have my word on that. But for, I cannot believe this, but it's three straight tournaments. He has been my dark horse. Indian Wells, where I don't think he made me look smart. Miami, where he did make me look somewhat smart. He got a couple of wins over Komasanya and Rublev before losing a tight one, 6-4 in the third to Alex Mikkelsen. And now I'm looking at this again, and I want to avoid Alcaraz's section. I want to pick from the section with Tiafoe and Bublik because as far as which unseated player is most likely to make a deep run, it's going to probably be out of that section. And then you have a very close on-paper matchup against Martan Fucovic, who actually beat Tabilo in Bucharest in 2024 But I just feel like Fucovic will have a lot of trouble hunting forehands against Tabilo's lefty precision. And I like the way Tabilo is playing overall. And to me, he's just easily the most dangerous unseated player in that particular section. More so than Griegsborg, who's struggling. More so than Monfils, who hasn't been able to really stack together wins in some time. So it's Tabilo as my dark horse. By the way, a Lahechka. Lahechka is his seed. A Yeezy Lahechka let down here wouldn't surprise me at all. He's fine on clay, but it is his worst surface. He's upset prone in general. And he'll be short on clay reps with a quick turn around after Miami. Would not surprise me at all if Tabilo also beat Lahechka. Upset alert is Tiafoe. We'll see if he plays, if he makes the final or wins Houston. We start to get into questionable territory of Tiafoe even playing in Monte Carlo. But he has been, he did play Monte Carlo for the first time last year. Hadn't played it. He was what, 27 years old at the time, maybe 26? And he hadn't played Monte Carlo in his career. Houston, he's been really consistent. And now he's quarterfinal or better in Houston, six years in a row. But as far as Monte Carlo is concerned, the clay is too slow, the travel is too tough, the turnaround too tough. And I think he probably would lose to Terence Atman. In the opening round, who did play him close in Miami, Tiafa won at 6-4 in the third. That would be a rematch. Early Popcorn, Alcaraz against the winner of Baez or Vavrinka. If it's Sebastian Baez, look Seb is one of my favorite players to watch. It is truly miraculous how much explosive athleticism comes out of that frame. It's something that I enjoy marvelling at and appreciating. And in Stan Vavrinka, you have obviously a probably potentially the last clash of these two titans in their own respects, in their separate generations. Probably the last time we see that one. And just kind of a head to head to relish for that reason. Quarterfinal prediction here is going to be Alcaraz defeats Tabilo. I am rolling with Tabilo all the way to the quarterfinal. I explained why I feel like he could take down Lahechka. And I don't really trust Bublik either on this bottom section. Bublik hasn't broken serve in three out of his last four matches. And lifetime in Monte Carlo, his record is one and five. So we'll go Tabilo. Alcaraz, this will be only his third time playing Monte Carlo. Last year, he won it. It was a big one for him. It was his first big title since winning Wimbledon the year prior. Kicked off what was a phenomenal clay court season for Carlos. And Alcaraz on clay has made at least the final of his last six events going back to Madrid 2024 So Roland Garros 2024, Olympics 2024, all of last year, every clay event he played last year, he's on a big streak of making at least the final on clay.