#NextGenATP Ymer & Benchetrit Qualify For Roland Garros

The Roland Garros main draw is complete after the final eight qualifiers booked their spots on Friday, led by two #NextGenATP competitors who will be making their Grand Slam debuts in Paris. 

Two 20-year-olds, Swede Mikael Ymer and Frenchman Elliot Benchetrit, battled through three-setters on the final day of qualifying to reach the main draw of the year’s second major. Ymer, the 32nd qualifying seed, beat fourth-seeded Swiss Henri Laaksonen 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in one hour and 46 minutes to move through, and he will face another qualifier, Slovenian Blaz Rola, in the first round. Rola ousted Colombian Daniel Elahi Galan 6-3, 6-2 in 76 minutes.

“I feel very emotional right now,” Ymer told RolandGarros.com. “It’s what we all work for since we were kids, a big milestone in my career.”

Although Ymer is 0-2 at tour-level this year, he has enjoyed success on the ATP Challenger Tour, claiming his first title at that level in Noumea, New Caledonia in January and reaching two additional finals.The World No. 149 won an ATP Masters 1000 match last year in Miami against Jan-Lennard Struff.

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Benchetrit, currently No. 273 in the ATP Rankings, overcame countryman Enzo Couacaud 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 after one hour and 55 minutes. Benchetrit will face Brit Cameron Norrie in his first tour-level match.

Top seed Tennys Sandgren will compete in the Roland Garros main draw for the third straight year after beating home favourite Mathias Bourgue 7-6(1), 7-5 in one hour and 46 minutes. It will be the 2018 Australian Open quarter-finalist’s seventh consecutive major main draw, and he will open against Moldovan Radu Albot. 

Italian Simone Bolelli, who reached the third round at Roland Garros in 2008 and 2015, will play the main draw in Paris for the 13th straight year after dismissing Japan’s Go Soeda 6-1, 7-6(5). Bolelli will try to upset home favourite and Australian Open semi-finalist Lucas Pouille.

The other three players who moved through are Frenchman Alexandre Muller, who beat Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4, Spaniard Pedro Martinex, who ousted Geoffrey Blancaneaux 6-3, 6-1, and Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, who eased past Lucas Miedler 6-2, 6-4.