Bernarda Pera
Americans Tennys Sandgren, Bernarda Pera, Varvara Lepchenko successfully navigated the qualifying rounds at Roland Garros and will wave the red, white and blue when the French Open gets underway today.
Sandgren in January won his first career ATP World Tour title in Auckland, and was the top seed in the men’s qualifying where he failed to drop a set.
Pera heated-up prior to the French Open qualifying by winning an ITF-level event in Slovakia.
You can judge the number of new faces among the French Open qualifiers by the number of missing photos among the lesser-known players on their biography pages, and this year’s round of qualifiers have more photos missing than present.
Other qualifiers among the men were Italians Salvatore Caruso, Stefano Travaglia and veteran Simone Bolelli, France’s Elliot Benchetrit and Alexandre Muller, Sweden’s Mikael Ymer, Russian Alexey Vatutin, Brazil’s Thiago Monteiro, Germans Yannick Maden, Rudolf Molleker and Yannick Hanfmann, Spain’s Pedro Martinez and veteran Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Belgian Kimmer Coppejans, and Slovenia’s Blaz Rola.
“I feel very emotional right now,” the 20-year-old Swede Ymer said after qualifying. “It’s what we all work for since we were kids, a big milestone in my career.”
Other women’s qualifiers were Slovak Kristina Kucova, Japan’s Kurumi Nara, Spain’s Aliona Bolsova, Italy’s Giulia Gatto-Monticone and Jasmine Paolini, German Antonia Lottner, Russians Sofya Zhuk, Liudmila Samsonova and Anna Blinkova, and Kazakhstan teen Elena Rybakina.
For additional info go to www.rolandgarros.com
