“One week can change your whole year” – Monteiro already planning ahead after Tsitsipas win

Thiago Monteiro has made the third round of an ATP Masters 1000 event for the very first time at the age of 29, and he did it by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-4 at the Madrid Open.

“Actually it’s never too late, never too late indeed,” he said in his press conference afterwards. “I see guys like [Jan-Lennard] Struff that is 32, 33, won his first ATP [title] last week. [Adrian] Mannarino, 35, he had his best season of his tennis career last year.

“Tennis is like this. One week can change the whole year, the whole plans that you have. You just need to keep working hard and to keep trying to enjoy it, take this opportunity, when it appears.

“I’m just happy that I could win against a top-10 player again in the second round of ATP 1000, and now playing for the first time the third round. Last year I had match points to be in the third round in Rome against Coric, and he was like 50 in the world, so it’s always like this. You need to keep believing, keep working, and you know some day it will pay off.”

Monteiro: I can play high level against the big guys

Monteiro added that he had felt very good going into the match – hinting at confirming what Tsitsipas had said earlier about only one of them on court being 100 per cent ready for it.

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“[This week] was a little bit different than the past weeks. I wasn’t feeling really good actually in the past three, four weeks, but I was kept the work ethic and also try to build my game again, because I was trying to grind in Challengers, but I didn’t have the results that were expected.

“But, I mean, tennis every week, we have a big opportunity, a new opportunity, so I was trying to focus on that, trying to every day push a little bit harder and practice a little bit better, because after the Rio Open, I didn’t keep the [consistency] on tournaments, and this week I was feeling really good. I like the conditions. I had two good matches on the qualifying and really good first round.

“So today it was already a different mindset in the game. I knew I had a big challenge ahead against a top player, but I was feeling good. I was just trying to enjoy also, and I just believed that I could create opportunities and believed in my game that I was back to feeling good again.

“So today it worked really well, and it give me, like, big confidence to know that in a good day I can play, like, in high level against these big guys. I just want to use this victory to keep going with confidence in the tournament and try to improve some things that we always can improve and be ready for the next one.”

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