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The official entry list for the 2024 Monte Carlo Masters has been confirmed and all the big guns will feature at the clay-court Masters, including Rafael Nadal as the 11-time champion has used his protected ranking to enter the tournament.
Nadal hasn’t played competitively since January’s Brisbane International after he withdrew from the Australian Open, Qatar Open and this week’s Indian Wells Open.
However, the former world No 1 has made no secret of the fact that the clay-court season will be his priority and he is now set to make his latest long-awaited comeback on the surface at the ATP 1000 event in the Principality from April 8-14.
The Spaniard missed the entire red-dirt campaign last year due to his hip flexor injury while he also missed the 2022 edition due to injury
The 22-time Grand Slam winner’s last appearance at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin was in 2021 when he was stunned by Andrey Rublev in the quarter-final.
And the King of Clay could make his farewell appearance at Monte Carlo this year as he has previously indicated that this will be his final season as a professional.
It has to be noted that it is not a 100% certainty that Nadal will play as even the official Monte Carlo masters website state that tournament director “David Massey remains optimistic about the participation of the Majorcan”.
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If he does indeed feature then Nadal can expect a difficult path at this year’s event as he won’t be seeded as he is currently at No 652 in the ATP Rankings and used his protected ranking to get into the main draw.
It means he won’t have a bye in the first round – that honour goes to the top eight seeds – but given it is a 56-player draw he can still face someone who is in the top 20 in the rankings and the likes of Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Grigor Dimitrov could be opponents.
If he does get through his opener, then chances are high he will face one of the top-eight players in the world in the second round although the luck of the draw might go his way.
As things stand, Novak Djokovic will be the top seed as he is assured of the world No 1 ranking until the middle April with the rest of the top 10 also featuring with Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev, defending champion Rublev, Alexander Zverev, Holger Rune, Hubert Hurkacz, Ruud and Alex de Minuar are all on the entry list.
It will be a strong field in Monte Carlo with only four players from the current top 50 – Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe, Chris Eubanks and Aslan Kasatsev – missing from the entry list.
