two. Both the singles and doubles were played on outdoor clay courts at the Monte Carlo Country Club. Summary Singles In the men's singles tournament, nine of the top ten ranked players in the world competed with top eight seeds of the tournament receiving byes in the first round. Of the other seeded players, Gaël Monfils (9) and Radek Štěpánek lost in the first round to Janko Tipsarević and qualifier Nicolás Lapentti, respectively. In the second round, seeds Juan Martín del Potro (5), Marin Čilić (14), Gilles Simon (6), and Tommy Robredo (11) were defeated by lower-ranked players. Lapentti's run ended in the third round when he lost to World No. 1 Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray (4), Nikolay Davydenko (8), Fernando Verdasco (7), and Novak Djokovic (3) progressed to the quarterfinals, but second-seeded Roger Federer was defeated by 13th-seeded and fellow Swiss player Stanislas Wawrinka. Wawrinka then defeated in straight sets one of the two non-seeded players left in the competition, qualifier Andreas Beck. In the other matches, Nadal beat wildcard Ivan Ljubičić, Murray defeated Davydenko, and Djokovic needed three sets to beat Verdasco. Murray faced Nadal in the semifinals in Murray's first career clay court semifinal. Nadal came into the match having lost just 14 times on clay in his career and won the match 6–2, 7–6. Djokovic recovered from losing the first set against Wawrinka to win the next two sets and the match 4–6, 6–1, 6–3. The top and the third ranked players in the world played each other in the final, with Nadal bidding to equal Federer's total of 14 Masters titles while Djokovic was appearing in his eighth Masters final. In their sixteenth meeting, Nadal took the first set 6–3, Djokovic won the second 6–2, but Nadal won the third 6–1 to seal his fifth successive title at the Monte Carlo Masters and the 35th of his career. Doubles The top eight doubles pairs automatically gained places in round two. The first round saw many top singles players teaming up, with Gaël Monfils/Stanislas Wawrinka, Marc Gicquel/Paul-Henri Mathieu and Feliciano López/Fernando Verdasco among the pairs to reach the second round. Novak Djokovic also teamed up with fellow Serbian Victor Troicki and beat unseeded doubles specialists Marcelo Melo and André Sá. In the second round, fifth-seeded Bruno Soares and Kevin Ullyett were one of only two seeded pair to depart the competition, losing to Marin Čilić and