Day 2 Qualifying: Ones to watch 

All of this had been built on the back of a succession of injury issues early in her career. But then in 2017, she was stopped in her tracks by a failed drugs test. 

Suspended for 10 months (the tribunal decreed it had not been a deliberate act of doping but that it was due to “negligence” on her part), she began the slow process of getting back to her former place in the pecking order. And that’s when she realised that she had the yips: her serve was in tatters. The harder she tried, the worse it got.

Yet the more anyone tries to put Errani down, the harder she fights back. She served underarm; she suffered horrible defeats but still she kept battling. And then, last year, she broke back into the world’s top 100 (she is currently the No.95) and she was ecstatic. This was as good as reaching a major final; this was better than hitting the No.5 spot all those years before. “Now I'm going to enjoy it more than I did the last time,” she told the WTA website last year.

And enjoy it she did and enjoy it she has. Now aged 37, she knows that she does not have much time left as a professional but with the Italian Open doubles title in her kit bag (she and Jasmine Paolini beat Coco Gauff and Erin Routliffe last weekend), she is smiling, she is confident and she is ready for anything Ann Li, the world No.178 from the United States, has to throw at her.

Three to Watch on Day 2

Diego Schwartzman (ARG) v Lukas Neumayer (AUT)

At the start of this month, Diego Schwartzman announced that this was to be his last full season on tour. He will retire next year in Argentina, his homeland, in what he hopes will be “the most beautiful closing I can imagine.” He wants to go out on his own terms and while he can still enjoy working and competing in his own style. 

His trademark running game – he makes the Energizer bunny look lazy – took him to the No.8 spot in the world rankings and to the semi-finals here in 2020. But now he has run far enough and “El Peque” (it means “the little one”) is ready to bow out at the age of 31. And thanks to tennis, he says that El Peque has had “a giant of a life”.

Kaia Kanepi (EST) v Petra Marcinko (CRO)

You cannot keep a good woman down. And Kaia Kanepi has, in her day, been a very good woman on the tennis court. She has won four WTA singles titles; she has been ranked as high as No.15 in the world but all of that was a long time ago.

Yet now aged 38, she is still Estonia’s top female player (she sits at No.246 in the world rankings) and even though she had barely played at all this year, she still turned out for singles and doubles duty in the Billie Jean King Cup in April. And having put in the work to get herself in shape for that venture, here she is at Roland-Garros. In the past, she has reached the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slam events, the most recent being in Australia two years ago.

J.J. Wolf (USA) v Ryan Peniston (GBR)

An American in Paris – someone may have written about that once, we think. And they don’t come more American than J.J. Wolf (the two Js stand for Jeffrey John but his pals call him Wolfie). Hailing from Cincinnati he loves his home town and he loves his home-town tournament. 

Clay, then, is not his natural habitat. He only took up tennis as a last-minute idea having played a range of sports throughout his high school years. Even then, he liked tennis because it reminded him of boxing: two men going toe to toe and the last man standing wins. But if J.J. is known for anything (other than his best ranking of No.39 last year) it is for his loud-and-proud mullet. Few would dare to try it but, then again, few are like J.J.