This year’s Monte Carlo Masters marked the start of a new era for the tournament.
Overseeing the running of the event for the first time was David Massey who is no stranger to working in the world of men’s tennis. Massey, who has been a resident of Monte Carlo since 2001, has previously served as the ATP’s vice president for Europe and has worked for the organisation in some capacity for 20 years. He also speaks fluently in English, Spanish and French.
Ubitennis spoke with Massey on the final day of this year’s tournament which concluded with Andrey Rublev winning his first Masters 1000 title by outlasting Holger Rune in three sets. He reflects on his first year in charge of one of the most prestigious clay court events outside of the French Open, provides some insights into this year’s attendance figures and speaks highly about the rise of Italian tennis.
SCANAGATTA: I would like to know what has brought you a better experience and what have you learned this year as tournament director? Also, what did you enjoy the most about this year’s tournament?
MASSEY: May I start by thanking Zeljko Franulovic (former tournament director) because it is always easier to build on an existing event. He ran it extremely well for so many years. I also know him, we worked together on the ATP Tour prior to 2004. It was a great privilege for me to take over from him.
In terms of what I have learnt this year, I think my 20 years of experience on the ATP Tour has served me well. Plus I also had one year (2022) where I was the deputy Tour director so I felt I came here (to Monte Carlo) prepared. I think I will always learn every single year. There are always things to improve but we are very satisfied with how we have built up the site this year. We were prepared to receive every sector, whether it would be the media, players, fans etc. We were really satisfied with the results there. Unlucky with the weather a couple of times but overall I am really satisfied with the week.
SCANAGATTA: Can you give us some numbers regarding spectators and the success of this tournament? As an Italian, I would have liked to see Jannik Sinner in the final but still, there was a great final with two great top 10 players.
MASSEY: We had 140,000 spectators which is a number that we have surpassed for the first time in the tournament’s history. That was a result of the real eagerness of our fans to come to sporting events. It has been a great effort from our ticketing department to sell those tickets and market the event.
We have a capacity on the site which can hold 15,644 people at one stage. It is very important for us to keep this in mind. So we are at capacity basically and it is hard to imagine that number increasing in the future but we want to maintain it at least. That is our goal.
We always have Easter Monday during the tournament which helps us and makes a big difference because people can enjoy that Monday of the tournament which is usually a work day.
In terms of the Italian market. We are just 11km away from the Italian border, so it is also like having a tournament which is played in Italy. We had so many Italian fans here and the depth of Italian players these days is exceptional. We saw fine tennis from all of the players. I think Matteo Berrettini was unlucky to have injured himself because he was really in good form before that. We saw how far Sonego went, Musetti’s upset against Djokovic and Jannik Sinner’s extremely good form.
Sinner is one of the few players who have got to the semi-finals of Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo in the same year. I think only Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are the only other players to have done this as well. So Sinner is in great form and I hope to see him go further in the future.
SCANAGATTA: Do you have any idea about the percentage of foreign visitors to Monte Carlo? We saw a match between an Italian and French player on Court 2 and there were more Italian supporters.
MASSEY: Roughly speaking, about 40% of ticket holders are Italian, around 50% are French and then 10% are international.
