Bernard Tomic and former Roland Garros semi-finalist, Ernests Gulbis, are among the 16 qualifiers that qualified for the main draw in Paris.
Tomic, who once claimed that he only played the sport for money, proved to be focused and determined this week as he didn’t drop a set in qualifying for the main draw. The controversial Australian edged out Portugal’s Goncalo Oliveira 7-6(5) 7-5 to seal his place in the main draw of Roland Garros. The 25 year old will now play another controversial Australian in Nick Kyrgios on Monday or Tuesday. The pair have history of bad blood so the match should be intriguing to say the least.
Another unique character in tennis is Ernests Gulbis and the former semi-finalist in Paris also qualified after a three set win over Italy’s Alessandro Giannessi. Despite distractions from the crowd, the Latvian controlled his emotions to seal his place as a qualifier in the main draw. The Latvian will now play 29th seed Gilles Muller in the main draw in Paris.
Other stories from qualifying include 21 year olds Jaume Munar and Hubert Hurkacz making their grand slam debuts after qualifying. The Spaniard overcame Duckhee Lee in three hours after his South Korean had a couple of match points. While Hurkacz overcame Marco Tungellitti in three sets which was a big result considering the Argentinian had qualified for Roland Garros four times previously.
So here are the 16 qualifiers as well as the four lucky losers and who they will play in the first round:
Jurgen Zopp (LL) v Jack Sock
Mirza Basic v Adam Pavlasek
Feliciano Lopez v Sergiy Stakhovsky (LL)
Hubert Hurkacz v Tennys Sandgren
Dudi Sela v Elias Ymer
Peter Polansky (LL) v Pierre-Hughes Herbert
Jordan Thompson v Casper Ruud
Martin Klizan v Laslo Djere
Nick Kyrgios v Bernard Tomic
Federico Delbonis v Thomaz Bellucci
Jozef Kovalik v Pablo Carreno Busta
Marcos Baghdatis v Santiago Giraldo
Jaume Munar v David Ferrer
Rogerio Dutra Silva v Novak Djokovic
Guido Andreozzi v Taylor Fritz
Dominic Thiem v Ilya Ivashka
Stefanos Tsitspas v Carlos Taberner
Oscar Otte (LL) v Matteo Berrettini
Ernests Gulbis v Gilles Muller
Damir Dzumhur v Denis Kudla
