Tennis Australia has announced the names of the players that will compete at the second Grand Slam event of the season in Paris, giving wild cards to Alexei Popyrin and Priscilla Hon. Popyrin is a former Roland Garros junior champion while Hon likes to compete on the slowest surface as well, embracing the opportunity to skip the qualifying round and chase the main draw wins directly, losing in the qualifications to Deborah Chiesa a year ago. The Brisbane native received an invitation at home event to kick off 2019 season before qualifying for the main draw in Sydney where she scored a triumph over Tatjana Maria.
Astra Sharma ousted Priscilla in Melbourne and she lost early in the next couple of tournaments before qualifying for the main draw at Indian Wells to add more points to her tally. Flying back home, Hon was the finalist of Canberra 2 ITF event on clay and she is now in Europe, preparing for Roland Garros debut and hoping for a good draw that would give her a chance to fight for at least one victory. Three years ago, Priscilla won ITF tournament in Santa Maria Margherita Di Pula in Italy on clay for the best result on the slowest surface in a career so far.
“First of all, I’m so thankful to Tennis Australia for believing in me and giving me this opportunity and for all the support they’ve given me throughout my career so far,” Hon said. “I’m so excited to be able to play the main draw of the French Open. I’ve never played in another main draw apart from the Aussie Open and I’m aiming for next year to be getting in on my ranking. I’m super excited and can’t wait to go out there and compete.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2vZUjsd
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