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According to the French Open website, the tournament at Roland Garros on clay courts starts in 40 days.
But to another 128 hopefuls – the same number that make the main draw – the tournament starts two weeks earlier when they line up for the opportunity to earn a place in the main draw.
All of these will be players ranked outside the top 104 ranked players in the world with eight players (including one Australian) being granted wild cards and direct access to the main draw.
At this stage I do not know who the lucky wild card recipient will be, or on what date the rankings are used to establish who is seeded and who gains direct entry into the tournament.
But based on last Sunday’s rankings, there should be seven male and two female Australians in the main draw with the prospect of another five men and eight women also qualifying by winning four matches in the qualifying tournament.
Our best chance in a tournament in which our men have had little recent success – according to the likely rankings – is Alex de Minaur.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The 23-year-old is currently ranked at number 25 in the world and therefore should achieve a seeding in the tournament, which means he will not meet a player ranked in the top 32 in the world until the third round.
De Minaur made the fourth round of the Australian Open this year and the quarter-final of the US Open in 2020.
Last year he made it through to the second round of the French Open for the second time, and not long afterwards obtained his best ever world ranking of 15.
Another player who achieved his best ever ranking of 46 in January this year was James Duckworth. His ranking has currently slipped to 71, and like de Minaur, he has made it no further than Round 2 of the French Open.
But he was a semi finalist in the junior title in 2010. Currently ranked four places below Duckworth is the 32-year-old John Millman.
Millman, like de Minaur, reached the quarter-finals of the US Open. His form in Paris has not been good as he has not managed to progress past the first round in seven attempts.
Jordan Thompson’s best grand slam result also was in the US Open, when he advanced to the fourth round in 2020. He has also reached the third round at both the French Open and Wimbledon.
Two of our best chances, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios, are currently ranked 85 and 94 respectively.
Kokkinakis is having a good year, after years of being injury plagued. At the Australian Open, he teamed up again with Kyrgios ten years after they won the Wimbledon juniors doubles title to win the grand slam Australian Open doubles title.
Although he has yet to reach his highest ranking of 69 from June 2015, he is still only 25 and has a lot of good tennis ahead of him.
His best result in grand slam events is Round 3 at Roland Garros.
Nick Kyrgios was ranked as high as 13 in 2016 and has made the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the Australian Open, with Round 3s at the French and US titles.
The enigma of Australian tennis, he will turn 27 just prior to the French Open.
The final (and youngest) player in the Australian men’s tennis contingent to the French Open is Alexei Popyrin. The 22-year-old Sydneysider has already reached Round 3 of the Australian and US Opens and Round 2 at the French Open and Wimbledon, all in the past three years.
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