Richard Gasquet given Monte Carlo wild card 20 years after breakthrough win over Roger Federer

Richard Gasquet’s goodbye to the game at Roland Garros this May will elicit plenty of fond memories. So, too, will his adieu from Monte Carlo.

Twenty years after the Frenchman dramatically defeated Roger Federer in the Principality, he will return to Monaco as a wild card. Gasquet won his very first tour-level match in Monte Carlo, but the now-38-year-old has played the picturesque clay-court Masters just once since his 2018 quarterfinal run. That was the fourth time Gasquet reached the final eight, but no match in that stage was more famous than his victory over top-ranked Federer. By spring 2005, the 24-year-old had collected four Grand Slam titles, was on a 25-match win streak, and would go on to win eight of the next 11 major tournaments.

But on this day, none of that mattered to the 19-year-old Gasquet.

“Fifteen years later,” wrote Steve Tignor in 2020 about this match, “I can still vividly recall the excitement of that day and that week around the Tennis Magazine office.”

Ranked 101st, the avant-garde upstart with a lovely yet lethal one-handed backhand impressed in taking the first set to a tiebreaker. But when he lost it 7-1, it was reasonable to expect Gasquet to fade away. The opposite happened. Gasquet ran through the second set, 6-2, and was pushing Federer hard.

“For the first time,” Tignor wrote, “we saw just how hot tennis’ version of The Microwave could get.”

Gasquet took a 5-2 lead in the third, but Federer wouldn’t capitulate in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin easily. The Swiss saved two match points and forced a winner-take-all tiebreak, then earned three match points of his own. Gasquet saved them all and, as Tignor put it, “finishes with one of the great match-ending shots of all time, an on-the-run backhand pass from well behind the baseline.”

In tour-level matches this season, Gasquet is 2-3. After withdrawing from his second-round match at the Pau, France ATP Challenger with an injury, he returned this week at the ATP 250 in Bucharest. There he ousted giant-killer Botic van de Zandschulp before falling to Flavio Cobolli.

Gasquet went 4-14 in tour-level matches in 2024, but played 12 events on the ATP Challenger Tour. His September triumph at the hard-court tournament in Cassis, France made him the third-oldest Challenger champion ever.

“I’m very proud,” Gasquet said. “Winning a tournament is always special.”

When I asked Gasquet about his propensity to play at a lower level last year at Roland Garros, he cited a fellow veteran who occasionally grinded on the ATP Challenger Tour, Andy Murray.

“Sometimes you need to play Challengers to be ready to play these kind of matches,” Gasquet said. “Of course, we love the game, that’s why we’re still playing.

Three other Monte Carlo wild cards were announced: Stan Wawrinka, Fabio Fognini—two former Monte Carlo champions who have also recently played on the ATP Challenger Tour—and Monaco native Valentin Vacherot.

Which means that Miami champion Jakub Mensik did not receive a wild card into the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. The 19-year-old told Tennis Channel’s Prakash Amritraj that he hoped to get one; instead, he withdrew from qualifying and will begin his clay-court season in Munich.