By Richard Pagliaro | Monday, April 6, 2026
Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle/ROLEX
Red clay isn’t exactly sentimental surface.
Two former Monte-Carlo champions—Stefanos Tsitsipas and Stan Wawrinka—bit the dust bowing to talented Argentinean opponents in their Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters openers today.
Buenos Aires champion Francisco Cerundolo broke serve six times sending three-time Monte-Carlo champion Stefanos Tsitsipas packing 7-5, 6-4.
It is Cerundolo’s first win over Tsitsipas in three career meetings and hands the 48th-ranked Greek his first Monte-Carlo opening-round loss in eight career appearances.
Photo credit: Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters Facebook
It is Cerundolo’s 50th career Masters 1000 match win and sends him into a second-round meeting 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, but was denied his bid to become the oldest match winner in ATP Masters 1000 history.
In his 16th and final Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters appearance, Wawrinka went down battling hard.
World No. 65 Baez posted his maiden Monte-Carlo main-draw win. Baez converted six of 12 break points defeating wild card Wawrinka in one hour, 47 minutes.
Baez’s reward for ending the three-time Grand Slam champion’s Monte-Carlo career is a second-round showdown vs. world No. 1 and seven-time major champion Carlos Alcaraz next.