Taylor Fritz and Hubert Hurkacz Both Withdraw From Monte-Carlo Masters
News
Taylor Fritz and Hubert Hurkacz will both miss the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters after withdrawing from the event because of injuries.
The Monte-Carlo Masters is traditionally the first clay-court ATP Masters 1000 event on the calendar. At the same time, it's the only non-mandatory Masters tournament, which is why some players choose to skip it.
Usually, the players who don't thrive on the clay courts postpone the start of their clay-court season. In this case, Fritz and Hurkacz are certainly not clay-court specialists, but the reason for their withdrawals was not the surface.
Hurkacz was forced to miss the Miami Open already, and it's clear that he didn't have enough time to recover for the Monte-Carlo Masters, which starts on April 6th and runs until April 13th. The Polish player provided a short update on his social media accounts.
Hurkacz shared footage of him practicing on a clay court, which is a good sign. At the same time, he stated that he was not yet ready to return to competitive action, which is why he chose to withdraw.
"Skipping MC [Monte-Carlo] this time. Got some homework to finish!"
Fritz's situation is a bit more complicated. The American player has played really well this year, recording 14 wins in 20 matches, but it seems that he picked up an injury along the way.
The 27-year-old last competed at the Miami Open, where he reached the semi-finals, losing to the eventual champion Jakub Mensik. After the loss, Fritz admitted that he picked up an injury during his quarter-final match against Berrettini.
"The main issue was I felt like in my match with Berrettini, returning how I was returning, I kind of reinjured the injury l'd been dealing with. Think of it like this. When it's like an ab injury, it's a lot of force through it when I'm catching the ball."
"I felt like towards the end of the match with Berrettini, end of the second set, I felt like I kind of reinjured that thing that I've been dealing with. I tried a bit in the warm-up trying to return like that. It was bugging me. I felt like injury-wise it wasn't a good idea to do it. I felt like it was hurting me."
Fritz was supposed to start his clay-court season already at the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) in Nimes, which is an exhibition event but he withdrew because of that injury. At the time, it seemed like a precaution.
"I was super excited to come back to the UTS Tour after I made the final in Los Angeles in 2023. Unfortunately, I aggravated an abdominal injury during my semi-final match in Miami, and I will not be able to recover in time to compete in Nimes this week. I was really looking forward to play in this iconic venue and can’t wait to be back on UTS soon!"
However, soon after his withdrawal from the UTS, Fritz also withdrew from the Monte-Carlo Masters, signalling that the issue might be a bit more serious. Despite Hurkacz's and Fritz's withdrawals from the Masters event, both players are currently scheduled to compete at the ATP 500 event in Munich the week after the Monte-Carlo Masters.
