Yesterday we saw Isabelle Wallace claim a French Open main draw spot after winning the wildcard playoff. Today is the start of the qualifying tournament for men.
Marc Polmans ACT Clay Court International #2 2017
There are seven Australian men who will fight it out in the qualifying rounds with the dream of reaching the main draw. Six men are in action today.
Thanasi Kokkinakis and Bernard Tomic are the headline players, along with Jason Kubler, Akira Santillan, Alex Bolt and Marc Polmans. John-Patrick Smith is scheduled to play tomorrow.
Already Akira Santillan has advanced to round two of the qualifying after defeating Japan’s Go Soeda 6-2, 6-2. Soeda achieved a career-high singles ranking of 47, but that was back in 2012. Santillan is at the other end of his career at just 20-years-old, soon to be 21. Santillan was born in Tokyo on 22 May but now lives in Brisbane.
Of the other lesser known players, Marc Polmans is the player in-form on clay. He won back-to-back titles last year in Canberra on clay courts, and then this year he won a futures tournament on clay and then was a runner-up before reaching the Challenger final in Tallahassee on green clay.
The Australian players taking part in the French are listed below with their current ranking. Main draw players are bolded.
- Nick Kyrgios (23)
- John Millman (58)
- Matthew Ebden (73)
- Jordan Thompson (85)
- James Duckworth (protected ranking)
- Alex De Minaur (106)
- Thanasi Kokkinakis (148) – into qualifying R2
- Jason Kubler (160) – lost qualifying R1
- Marc Polmans (176) – lost qualifying R1
- Alex Bolt (178) – lost qualifying R1
- John-Patrick Smith (197) – lost qualifying R1
- Bernard Tomic (208) into qualifying R2
- Akira Santillan (211) – into qualifying R2
Matt Ebden serve and vollies against Taro Daniel in the second set of the men’s Apis Canberra International final. (Photo by Rob Keating, http://photos.keatingmedia.com.au)
Canberra, Australia – 22 March 2017: Jason Kubler playing in the ACT Clay Court International #2 in Canberra (Photo by Rob Keating)
Canberra, Australia – 31 October 2017: Alex Bolt in his round one match against Jacob Grills in the Canberra International. (Photo by Rob Keating)
