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Tommy Paul Earns 2019 French Open Main Draw Wild Card

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Tommy Paul

Tommy Paul Earns 2019 French Open Main Draw Wild Card

Former French Open Boys’ Champion Clinches Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge

 

May 2, 2019 – Former French Open junior singles champion Tommy Paul will compete in his first Roland Garros main draw later this month, as the 21-year old American earned a wild card entry by winning the USTA’s Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge. Paul clinched first place in the Challenge with Tenny Sandgren’s third-round loss to Federico Coria on Thursday at the ATP Challenger 80 event in Savannah, Ga. 

 

Paul, now ranked a career-high No. 143, collected 155 points in the Challenge standings by winning the singles title at the Challenger 100 in Sarasota, Fla., and reaching the final at the Challenger 80 in Tallahassee, Fla., last week. Only Sandgren could have overtaken Paul should Paul have lost before the semifinals in Savannah and Sandgren won the title there.

 

Born in Vorhees, N.J., raised in Greenville, N.C., and now living in Orlando and training at the USTA National Campus, Paul won the 2015 French Open boys’ singles title over fellow American Taylor Fritz, becoming only the second American boy to win the Roland Garros junior singles title since John McEnroe in 1977, after Bjorn Fratangelo won it in 2011. Paul’s only professional appearance at the French Open to date came in the 2016 qualifying rounds, when he came two wins short of qualifying for the main draw.

 

Click here to view the full Wild Card Challenge standings.

 

Seventeen-year old Whitney Osuigwe has the lead in the women’s side of the Challenge, which will conclude next week.

 

Should the player with the highest number of Challenge points earn direct entry into the French Open, the wild card will go to the next eligible American in the Challenge points standings. In the event of a tie, the player with the best ATP or best WTA singles ranking at the end of the four-week Challenge windows will earn the wild card.

 

The remaining events that count toward the Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge for the women:

 

Women’s Events

  • Week of April 29: WTA Internationals (Prague; Rabat); USTA Pro Circuit / ITF World Tennis Tour W100 (Charleston, S.C.); ITF World Tennis Tour W60 (Wiesbaden, Germany)
  • Week of May 6: WTA Premier Mandatory (Madrid); USTA Pro Circuit / ITF World Tennis Tour W100 (Bonita Springs, Fla.); ITF World Tennis Tour W100 (Cagnes-sur-Mer, France)

This is the eighth consecutive year the USTA has used a wild card challenge format to award French Open wild cards for American players. Previous Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge winners (and how they did at that year’s French Open) are below:

 

2018: Noah Rubin (1R); Taylor Townsend (2R)

2017: Tennys Sandgren (1R); Amanda Anisimova (1R)

2016: Bjorn Fratangelo (2R); Taylor Townsend (2R)

2015: Frances Tiafoe (1R); Louisa Chirico (1R)

2014: Robby Ginepri (1R); Taylor Townsend (3R)

2013: Alex Kuznetsov (1R); Shelby Rogers (2R)

2012: Brian Baker (2R); Melanie Oudin (2R)

 

The 2019 French Open main draw will be held Sunday, May 26, to Sunday, June 9.

 

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