Lulu Sun chasing French Open qualifying slot

Kiwi No.1 Lulu Sun will get her Roland-Garros campaign underway in the women's qualifying round in Paris tomorrow.

Twenty-five year old Sun with a current Women's Tennis Association (WTA) ranking of 106 came agonisingly close to making the main draw where the cut off was a player ranked 104.

Sun, seeded five in the qualifying round, will play China's Yexin Ma ranked 186, on the red clay courts of Roland-Garros where the tournament starts today in both the men's and women's qualifying rounds. In the women's draw, 128 women are chasing 16 qualifying spots, decided after three rounds.

The qualifying draw includes two former Grand Slam winners, Sloane Stephens of the United States (2017 US Open) and Bianca Andreescu of Canada (2019 US Open) along with former world No.1 Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic. Top seed for the qualifying draw is Thailand's Lanlana Tararudee.

New Zealand's other hopes at Roland-Garros are our No 1 doubles players, Erin Routliffe and Michael Venus.

Routliffe and her partner Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia currently sit at sixth ranking on the tournament's doubles entry list. Routliffe has a WTA doubles ranking of 12 and Ostapenko 14, while Ostapenko with a singles ranking of 36, will also contest the women's championship.

Going into the French Open Routliffe says she is working really hard with her lead-in tournaments including Madrid, Rome and Strasbourg. "I hope I can get it going and have a really good 2026," she says. 

Venus, who won the doubles title at Roland-Garros in 2017 with his American partner Ryan Harrison, returns with his current regular partner Yuki Bhambri of India. They are currently ranked 20 on the entry list. 

Thirty-eight year old Venus returned to the tour in March this year after a seven-months break following surgery to his elbow.

Meanwhile it's an anxious week of waiting for any withdrawals in the current doubles main draw for the Kiwi pair of James Watt and Finn Reynolds who sit just five slots off a start at the Grand Slam. Watt current ranking is 86 with Reynolds at 87. They sit at 62 on the entry list where the cut-off is currently 57. 

Both have made no secret of the fact that making a Grand Slam draw is one of their goals and they definitely have Roland-Garros and Wimbledon in their sights.