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Hey Suite101 members!
First things first, there have been a number of tournaments which have taken place in the month of April, and all of them detrimental to the outcome of the rankings. We'll start our exploration with the claycourt tournament of the Monte Carlo Open (April 20-26), the third Super 9 event for the men's tour (the Super 9 tournaments are a group of the nine most prestigious tournaments on the ATP tour, apart from the four Grand Slam tournaments). 21 of the world's Top 25 players chose to participate in the event, and while the results have proven to be rather as expected, there have been quite a few surprises along the way. With Chile's Marcelo Rios, the world #1, unable to defend his Monte Carlo title from last year due to an elbow injury he sustained during Davis Cup play, there was to be a dogfight for the top position way before play even started - American Pete Sampras, the former world #1, touted as the "best player to emerge in the past 25 years" was already in the running, with Czech Petr Korda, a Grand Slam winner at the age of 30, not very far behind. Nevertheless, 1998's Monte Carlo Open has caused a few surprises along its course, with a most interesting second round clash between former world #1's Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Remembering Andre Agassi has the second best match record so far in the year, leads Sampras 3-0 on clay surfaces,won their last match 6-2, 6-4, and that Sampras has never won a match at Monte Carlo in his career, it was interesting to find Pete still finding a way to beat his American counterpart, and in straight sets at that with a convincing 6-4, 7-5 win. With Korda's quarterfinal loss to former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek, it monopolised Sampras's campaign for the #1, despite his third round loss to Fabrice Santoro, who handed Sampras his worst loss in eight years on the circuit, 6-1, 6-1 - a big confidence breaker for Sampras in the lead up to the clay court major, the French Open next month - the only Grand Slam title which has eluded Sampras.
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