By Richard Pagliaro | Monday, April 6, 2026
Picture credit score: Antoine Couvercelle/ROLEX
Crimson clay isn’t precisely sentimental floor.
Two former Monte-Carlo champions—Stefanos Tsitsipas and Stan Wawrinka—bit the mud bowing to gifted Argentinean opponents of their Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters openers immediately.
Buenos Aires champion Francisco Cerundolo broke serve six instances sending three-time Monte-Carlo champion Stefanos Tsitsipas packing 7-5, 6-4.
It’s Cerundolo’s first win over Tsitsipas in three profession conferences and arms the Forty eighth-ranked Greek his first Monte-Carlo opening-round loss in eight profession appearances.
Picture credit score: Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters Fb
It’s Cerundolo’s fiftieth profession Masters 1000 match win and sends him right into a second-round assembly vs. Tomas Machac. The 53rd-ranked Czech outlasted Daniel Altmaier 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in his opener.
Argentinean Sebastian Baez beat 2014 Monte-Carlo champion Stan Wawrinka 7-5, 7-5 in an entertaining opener. The 41-year-old Wawrinka is the oldest man to play an ATP Masters 1000 match, however was denied his bid to grow to be the oldest match winner in ATP Masters 1000 historical past.
In his sixteenth and ultimate Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters look, Wawrinka went down battling onerous.
World No. 65 Baez posted his maiden Monte-Carlo main-draw win. Baez transformed six of 12 break factors defeating wild card Wawrinka in a single hour, 47 minutes.
Baez’s reward for ending the three-time Grand Slam champion’s Monte-Carlo profession is a second-round showdown vs. world No. 1 and seven-time main champion Carlos Alcaraz subsequent.
