Richard Gasquet waved goodbye to the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters for the final time on Wednesday after falling to Daniel Altmaier in his last appearance at the ATP Masters 1000 event.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman, who is set to retire after Roland Garros, made his debut in The Principality 23 years ago as a 15-year-old wild card. Having earned victory against Matteo Arnaldi in his opening match at this year\u2019s event, the 38-year-old was unable to continue his run against Altmaier.<\/p>\n
After his defeat, Gasquet was honoured during an emotional on-court ceremony.<\/p>\n
In front of a packed crowd on Court Rainier III, Gasquet embraced Melanie Ann de Massy, President of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters and David Massey, the tournament director. They then watched a short film of Gasquet\u2019s greatest moments at the event, including his semi-final run in 2005.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing to walk on this exceptional court, the most beautiful in the world,\u201d Gasquet said. \u201cWhen I was young, I came to watch the matches in the stands, dreaming of stepping onto this court. I did it. Next year, I\u2019ll return, in the stands, to watch the new talents. But the memories will always stay with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gasquet recorded a 19-12 record at the Masters 1000 clay-court event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gasquet was making final appearance at the event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classifiee-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n