By Express News Service
CHENNAI:In the end, it was so close yet so far for Prajnesh Gunneswaran. Sunday looked like a marquee day for the 28-year-old after it emerged that he had qualified for the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time. However, it ended in an anticlimax after it turned out Prajnesh wasn’t even around to play his match.
Prajnesh had initially come within one match of the main draw, losing to Elias Ymer in the final round of the French Open qualifiers on Friday. However, on Sunday, Australian Nick Kyrgios pulled out of the tournament with an injury making Prajnesh the ‘lucky loser’ in line to replace him in the first round game against Bernard Tomic. However, it emerged that Prajnesh had already flown out of the country and had entered the Challenger event in Vicenza, Italy, thus denying him the chance to compete in the French Open. “I already chose to pull out because I believed that I was too far out,” Prajnesh told Express from Italy. “I had to take a call on Friday at 9 pm.”
To be fair, Prajnesh was some way down in the list of ‘lucky losers’ when the qualifiers concluded. However, a spate of withdrawals meant that eight ‘lucky losers’ will contest the main draw of the French Open. Kyrgios will now be replaced by Marco Trungelliti of Argentina in the match against Tomic. If Prajnesh had been on hand to take up his spot, two Indians would have contested the men’s singles main draw of a Grand Slam event for the first time in nearly two decades. Yuki Bhambri will play Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium on Tuesday.
Venus, Ostapenko out
Former World No 1 Venus Williams suffered a shock defeat by Chinese player Wang Qiang in the French Open first round on Sunday. The 37-year-old ninth seed was well short of her best as Wang claimed a 6-4, 7-5 victory and gained a measure of revenge for her first-round loss to Venus at Roland Garros last year.
Meanwhile, Jelena Ostapenko became only the second defending champion to lose in the first round of Roland Garros when she slumped to a shock 7-5, 6-3 defeat by Kateryna Kozlova of Ukraine.
