Roland-Garros: three questions about qualifying


Gauthier Delomez with AFP
modified to

09:25, May 16, 2022

A week before the start of Roland-Garros, the qualifications open. These are small tournaments which make it possible to integrate the main draws of the Parisian Grand Slam. And sometimes, despite the burst of extra energy, certain players “from the qualifications” then achieve a great performance in the “real” tournament. This was the case of Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska in 2020, who had reached the women’s singles semi-final after taking this first step. Europe 1, partner of Roland-Garros, takes stock of the “qualifiers” for the 2022 edition which start this Monday at 10 a.m.

Who should take part in the qualifications?

Players ranked above 100th in the world must take part in the qualifications to enter the main draw. For both women and men, 128 participants come to the starting line to compete for 16 qualifying tickets, as indicated on the official Roland-Garros website. All are ranked between 100th and 240th in the world, with the exception of the nine female players and nine even lower ranked players who benefit from a wild card. This is an invitation offered to them by the tournament management. Some allow you to enter the big picture directly, others require you to play the qualifications.

How are they organised?

Qualifiers take place the week before the start of the main tournament, and function as a collection of smaller tournaments. To obtain a qualifying ticket, both women and men must win three best-of-three matches. Like the large table, the players are distributed according to their world ranking with the system of “seeds”. The confrontations are planned so that the two best players of the same part of the table face each other only in the third decisive match.

Reserved prizes are similar for men and women, and up on last year: a player eliminated in the first qualifying round will receive 14,000 euros, in the second round 20,000 euros and in the third round 31,000 euros. “The increase in the endowment makes it possible to support the populations of players who have suffered the most from the health crisis in recent years”, explains the French Tennis Federation (FFT).

Also, a player who loses in the decisive third match is not necessarily eliminated. Indeed, those who are among the eight best eliminated obtain the status of lucky loser (happy losers), abbreviated LL on the boards. In the event of last minute absence of a player from the main draw, it is these “happy losers” who are fished out.

Will there be French?

Yes ! And among them, many are invited by the organizers of Roland-Garros. These are often very young promising players who are not ranked high enough to compete in the qualifiers. This is the case, for example, of Arthur Cazaux (19 years old, 308th worldwide), Océane Babel (18 years old, 661st worldwide) or even Arthur Fils (17 years old, 405th), finalist of the junior edition 2021 .

The French who will go through the qualifications will hope to do better than the 2021 edition, where no French player had managed to climb into the big picture at Roland-Garros.



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