La Monf Means No Fed

Once again, the Côte d'Azur was not kind to World No 2 Roger Federer.

Triumph at the Monte Carlo Masters is apparently not meant to be for the Swiss maestro.

In the event's second round, Gaël Monfils sealed Federer's fate with a convincing straight-set victory, 6-4 7-6.

Not quite what the ATP's PR machine had in mind when hyping the tournament, correctly couching it as part of  Rafael Nada'ls clay court realm, but placing Mr Feathers -- federer in German -- as the challenger this time around, and not the Swiss dude who claimed the crown in 2014, Stanislas Wawrinka.

Yet another benefit of being a big brand.

But Federer's name pulls viewers and customers:

Both players had sketchy starts, but when Federer converted the first break point, it looked like a ordinary day at the office for him. The score stood at 3-1 then, but La Monf responded and quickly leveled things up.

As match progressed, Federer looked like a cranky old guy who was forced to play today. His body languagy was synonymous for pure negativity, while on other side of the net, crowd favorite Monfils exuded good vibes. As a result, it didnt take long for him to capture the set.

Federer kept up his aggression, but the payoff just wasn't there.

• He finished the match with 38 unforced errors and just 17 winners.
• His backhnad was a liability during entiure match.
• It's safe to say his second serve had its better days, with only 48% of those points won.

In the second set tiebreaker, Monfils was trailing 4-5 with Federer having two serves to tied the match. However, he was still out of sorts. So while Federer was yelling and cursing, Monfils stole the show, win the tiebreaker, 7-5, and thus the match.

To say Monfils is comfortable on his home ground in an understatement, as shown by this deke he laid on Alexandr Dolgopolov in an earlier match he also won in straight sets:

Dude's got it working.