Alejandro Davidovich Fokina caught eyeballs with his impressive display in the first ATP Masters tournament of the season on the clay court. World Number 1, Novak Djokovic, was playing in just his second tournament of the season in Monaco. However, Fokina caused the upset of the tournament, defeating the Serb in the second round.

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Further, the Spaniard went on to reach the final. However, Stefanos Tsitsipas cut short his dream run at the tournament. The defending champion retained his Monte Carlo Masters crown, defeating the rising Spanish star in straight sets.

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His impressive run at the tournament has significantly improved his ATP rankings. The 22-year-old is placed in the 27th position on the ATP rankings chart. Recently, he had an emotional answer to one of the questions.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina reveals tennis is too tough

During an interview, an interviewer asked Fokina whether he would like his kids to pursue tennis. He replied, “No, never. Forget it. A football player or something easier. For me, tennis is too tough. My family didn’t have the money to continue like to I can continue to play tennis and it’s too expensive when you’re a kid then and a lot of pressure to my parents to be there every weekend, go traveling. I don’t think I will put my kids to tennis.”

Coming to his final’s defeat against Tsitsipas, it was always going to be tough for Fokina against the defending champion. However, the Spaniard started the match positively, breaking Tsitsipas’ serve in the third game of the opening set. Against the run of play, Tsitsipas broke back to level the first set 2-2. Further, Fokina lost his service game in the eighth game of the first set. The Greece national went on to hold serve to take the opening set 6-3.

In the second set, Tsitsipas carried the momentum as he broke the Spaniard’s serve in the very first game. However, Fokina came back strongly to level the set at 2-2. Further, the two players exchanged breaks of serves in the ninth and the tenth game of the second set as the set eventually proceeded into the tiebreaker. Tsitsipas used his experience to win crucial points and clinch his first title of the season.

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The two players will next be seen in action at the Barcelona Open in Spain. The ATP 500 tournament commences this week.