With clay tournaments coming thick and fast over the last few weeks, we had some new faces prevail and some older heads staying true to their winning mantras. Stefanos Tsitsipas won his maiden Masters 1000 with a flawless week in Monte Carlo, beating the likes of Rublev, Garin and the ever-impressive Karatsev on the way to his first title. Stefanos is surely looking like the next king of clay after an 18-set unbeaten streak on the surface. Rafa started the tournament in classic Rafa fashion, but was undone by Rublev in the semi-finals, starting a streak of difficult matches for the Spaniard as he looked to capture another title on Pista Rafa Nadal. Novak Djokovic, making his first appearance since AO, lost in remarkable fashion to Dan Evans, the Brit overwhelming the world no.1 in straight sets on his least favourite surface.
Barcelona came about, and Rafa dropped the opening set of his first match to Ilya Ivashka, sparking a week of unforced errors and double faults. Despite this, Nadal was able to capture a 12th Barcelona final, besting Tsitsipas in the final after the longest match of the season so far at 3:38. The two went back and forth, Rafa having 2 championship points in the second before the Greek eventually took it to a third. Tsitsipas had another fantastic week in Spain, beating the likes of Auger-Aliassime and Jannik Sinner on his way to the final.
In Stuttgart, Ash Barty showed everyone why she deserves to be world no.1 with yet another title to her name, doing the double quite literally and picking up the doubles title as well. The Australian bested Sabalenka in the final, off the back of her own impressive week, who sadly picked up an adductor injury in the second set. The Belarusian beat the likes of Simona Halep, fresh off a shoulder injury, to make the final before sadly falling short to Ash - but took the loss well on social media. Ash was untouchable throughout the week though, coming from a set and a break down to beat Svitolina, who herself had to come through Kerber and Kvitova. She became the first woman to secure both the singles and doubles titles at Stuttgart.
The women have already started in Madrid, with Muguruza sadly having to pull out of the tournament with a left thigh injury. Ash has started strong again, beating Shelby Rogers in what we think is their fourth meeting this season, whilst current RG champion Swiatek started the week with a convincing 6-1 6-1 first round victory - her first tournament since the French Open.
We end on some positive news, firstly the return of Roger Federer in Geneva this year before playing the French Open, and secondly a massive congratulations to Carla Suarez Navarro for beating cancer!
