The Rolex Monte Carlo Masters has confirmed its full wildcard lineup ahead of Friday’s draw ceremony, and the four invitations handed out by organizers tell a story as old as sport itself: two celebrated careers making their farewell appearance on one of the courts that defined them, a former champion fighting to reclaim his best tennis, and a 17-year-old Frenchman stepping into Masters-level competition for the first time.
Stan Wawrinka, who turned 41 at the end of March, is playing his final season on tour and his return to Monte Carlo carries particular weight — the Swiss three-time Grand Slam champion won the only Masters 1000 title of his career on these courts in 2014, defeating compatriot Roger Federer in the final.
He has notched six tour-level victories so far in 2026 and returned to the top 100 for the first time since 2024, meaning the farewell is being made on his own terms. It will be his 16th main draw appearance at the tournament.
Gaël Monfils will also be making his final appearance at the event. The Frenchman has announced that 2026 will be the last season of his professional career, closing out more than two decades on tour. A former world No. 6 and winner of 13 ATP titles, Monfils reached the Monte Carlo final in 2016, losing to Rafael Nadal — one of the very few French players ever to reach that stage in Monaco.
He was also a Grand Slam semifinalist at Roland Garros in 2008 and the US Open in 2016, a career bookended by performances that underlined just how close he came to the sport’s biggest prizes without ever claiming one. His presence this week forms part of a farewell tour that the tour’s most theatrical performer is conducting in characteristically understated fashion — simply by playing.
The contrast with Moïse Kouamé could not be sharper. The 17-year-old has been awarded a wildcard that will give him his first appearance in a Masters 1000 main draw, having impressed in early 2026 by becoming the first player born in 2009 to reach the semi-finals of a Challenger tournament, and by winning his first Masters 1000 match at the Miami Open earlier this month.
He is currently ranked No. 325 in the world and is the youngest player inside the top 500 — the sixth-youngest man to qualify for an ATP Tour tournament since 2000 when he broke through at the ATP 250 event in Montpellier in February. Tournament organisers have been explicit in framing his selection alongside Monfils as a deliberate passing of the torch within French tennis.
The fourth wildcard goes to Matteo Berrettini. The former Wimbledon finalist and one-time top-10 player has been working his way back from a run of injury-disrupted seasons and is treating Monte Carlo as the platform for a definitive return to form on clay — a surface on which he defeated then-world No. 2 Alexander Zverev in the second round of last year’s edition.
All four wildcards enter a draw that has been reshaped by a wave of high-profile withdrawals. Novak Djokovic pulled out earlier this week with a right shoulder injury that also kept him out of Miami, joining Taylor Fritz, Ben Shelton, Jack Draper, and Sebastian Korda on the absentee list.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz heads the field alongside Sunshine Double winner Jannik Sinner, with the draw ceremony taking place Friday evening at 5 p.m. local time at the Monte-Carlo Bay, in the presence of Alcaraz. Main draw play begins Sunday, April 5.
