Nadal’s Masters 1000 breakthrough in Monte-Carlo, 20 years on

All the evidence from Rafael Nadal’s young career prior to the 2005 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters suggested he was good. Yet it was perhaps the teenage Spaniard’s showing that year in the Principality that brought home to many just how good.

Nadal dropped just 14 games across his first four matches and ultimately powered to his maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown for the loss of just two sets in a stunning display of clay-court tennis. Twenty years on, ATPTour.com reflects on how an 18-year-old lefty wearing an orange tank top and ‘pirate’ shorts produced a statement run on the Monte-Carlo clay.

Dialled-in Rafa's Opening Salvo
Already a three-time ATP Tour champion after triumphs in Sopot (in 2004), Costa do Sauipe and Acapulco (both in early 2005), Nadal arrived for the 2005 Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters just a week after breaking the Top 20 of the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time. He had also already made his mark at Masters 1000 level that year by reaching the championship match in Miami, where he led World No. 1 Roger Federer by two sets and 4-1 before falling to a five-set defeat.

The new World No. 17 Nadal certainly started like a player full of confidence in his second Monte-Carlo campaign (on his event debut two years earlier, Nadal had reached the third round as a 16-year-old Masters 1000 debutant, a run which earned him a spot in the Top 100 for the first time). He dispatched his fellow teenager Gael Monfils 6-3, 6-2 before also easing past Belgians Xavier Malisse (6-0, 6-3) and Olivier Rochus (6-1, 6-2).

_{^{Nadal, sporting his iconic sleeveless shirt/pirate shorts combo, in action against Malisse. Photo Credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images}}

So far, so good, but what would prove to be Nadal’s toughest opponent of the week by PIF ATP Ranking was awaiting in the quarter-finals: World No. 6 and reigning Roland Garros champion Gaston Gaudio. Yet a dialled-in Nadal barely seemed to register the status of his opponent, racing to a 6-3, 6-0 triumph in just over an hour, his first victory in four Lexus ATP Head2Head meetings between the pair.

“He was a bit nervous at the start,” said Nadal of Argentina’s Gaudio, who had accelerated to a 0-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory in a Buenos Aires clash between the pair only two months earlier. “I learned the lessons from Buenos Aires, because then I rushed too much. This time, I played more calm and I was waiting for him to miss… Little by little, the points came on my side, and the result is there.”

Nadal Masters Monaco
Nadal took on another 18-year-old enjoying a breakout Monte-Carlo moment in the semi-finals: Richard Gasquet. The Frenchman had stunned World No. 1 Federer in the quarter-finals and was also touted as one of the ATP Tour’s brightest prospects, with his one-handed backhand a particular standout feature of his game.

Yet Nadal was perfectly set up to put Gasquet’s one-hander to the test. He was generating heavy RPMs on his lefty forehand, forcing the ball to jump off the clay and make opponents hit above their shoulder, and it proved too much for his fellow teenager in a three-set battle. Nadal prevailed 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-3 for his second win in as many tour-level meetings with Gasquet. Their Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting would ultimately end 18-0.

_{^{Nadal powers his forehand, already established as a big weapon on clay, against Gasquet. Photo Credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images}}

On the brink of becoming the second-youngest Masters 1000 champion in history (after Michael Chang in Toronto, 1990), Nadal needed to defeat a second Top-10 player of the week if he was going to complete a dream title in Monte-Carlo. World No. 9 Guillermo Coria, the defending champion and the man who had ended Nadal’s 2003 breakout run in Monaco, was his opponent in the best-of-five-sets final.

This time around, however, there was to be no stopping the teenage Spaniard. Even despite a significant lapse in the third set, Nadal earned a 6-3, 6-1, 0-6, 7-5 victory. "He was playing well in all parts of the game and I didn't know where to play," the beaten Coria later acknowledged in his post-match press conference.

"It is my first big title. [I thought I was] very happy when I won the Davis Cup, but now this is unbelievable," said Nadal, who the next month won his first major title on his Roland Garros debut and finished the year as World No. 2 after a career-best 11 trophies in one season.

The quality of the clay-court talents Nadal defeated in Monte-Carlo that year is emphasised by a quirky link between his title run in the Principality and 2004 Roland Garros. En route to the title, Nadal downed 2004 Roland Garros singles champion Gaudio, singles finalist Coria, doubles champions Malisse/Rochus, mixed doubles champion Gasquet and boy’s champion Monfils.

_{^{Nadal lifts his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title after defeating Coria in Monte-Carlo. Pascal Guyot/AFP via Getty Images}}

The Start Of A Monte-Carlo Dynasty
Nadal’s 2005 triumph was just a taste of what was to come from the Spaniard on the clay of the Monte-Carlo Country Club.

By the time of his retirement in 2024, he had won a record 11 titles at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. No player has won a single Masters 1000 tournament more times. He tallied more titles than losses at the event, where he finished up with a 73-6 record, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, including a 46-match winning streak from 2005-13.

With Nadal no longer playing, the door is open for another ATP Tour star to carve out a significant legacy of their own in Monte-Carlo. Stefanos Tsitsipas is the current frontrunner in that respect, with the Greek entering the 2025 edition aiming for his fourth title, while last year’s Roland Garros champion Carlos Alcaraz and finalist Alexander Zverev are chasing their first. Whoever prevails this year, it will take many more years of persistent winning to track down Nadal’s monumental Monte-Carlo legacy.