The French Open tennis tournament, which will run until June 11, opens this Monday with the start of the qualifying rounds. 128 male and 128 female players will compete for one of the 16 tickets to the final draw.
The prestigious French tennis tournament Roland-Garros kicks off! From this Monday until May 26, 128 male players and 128 female players will try to enter the Grand Slam tournament.
Little known to the general public, the qualifications for the French Open are nevertheless very important. They will allow the best players, ranked between 100th and 230th in the ATP and WTA rankings, to validate their ticket to the final draw. The matches have been allocated in a draw, which took place on Sunday.
The French Tennis Federation (FFT) has also distributed nine invitations, the “wild-cards”, to the tricolors for each of the two tables. France’s Fiona Ferro, currently ranked 392nd in the world and former 39th in the world, who was a finalist at the French Open in 2020, received a wild card, as did hopeful Gabriel Debru, ranked 533rd in the world, who won the title at the French Open as a junior in 2022.
32 best players selected
The qualifying matches are held exclusively on the annex courts and are played in two winning sets for both men and women. Three rounds are required to secure one of the 16 qualifying tickets for the Paris fortnight. The qualifying players follow the same system as the main tournament, with a seeded draw. This means that the top 32 players, i.e. the highest ranked, cannot compete in the first two rounds.
For the last eliminated players, there is still a last chance to enter the main draw. At the end of the qualifying rounds, the eight best players eliminated in the third round are given the status of “lucky loser”. This means that if they fail to make it to the first round of the final draw, they will be eligible for a spot in the main draw.
The prize money for the qualifiers has been increased again this year and is the same for both men and women. According to the official tournament website, a loser in the first round will receive 16,000 euros, 22,000 euros for a loss in the second round and 34,000 euros for the third and final round. If any of the qualifiers make it through the main draw, they will earn an additional 69,000 euros.
French players in the running
As for the French players, 16 of them are participating in the tournament. Among them are Pierre-Hugues Herbert (ranked 397th in the world), two-time winner of the French Open in doubles (2018 and 2021), as well as Lucas Pouille (ranked 678th in the world), quarter-finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open (2016) and semi-finalist at the Australian Open (2019).
Fourteen players represent France, including Elsa Jacquemot (174th), Chloé Paquet (201st) and Harmony Tan (210th), among others.
The France Television Group is the official broadcaster of the competition but this year it shares the airwaves with the streaming platform Amazon Prime Video. In 2021, Carlos Alcaraz, one of the favorites of this year, had dazzled with his talent the qualifications of Roland Garros.
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