Back to square one

It’s a funny old life being a professional tennis player. One minute you are the talk of the town, reaching your first Masters 1000 quarter-final in Rome (beating Andrey Rublev to get there) and having Daniil Medvedev saying all sorts of nice things about you and the next you are back in qualifying facing an almighty scrap just to get a toe in the next main draw.

Welcome to Yannick Hanfmann’s world. Although the new rankings list published on Monday showed the German to be the No.64 in the world (thanks in no small part to his run in Rome), his rise up the pecking order had come just too late.

The entry deadline for Roland-Garros was six weeks ago, back when Hanfmann was ranked No.110 and just outside the main draw cut-off. So it was back to the qualifying tournament for our hero.

Then again, he is rather good at qualifying – in Rome, he came through qualifying for the sixth time this year (five of those tournaments were on clay too). And once he is into the main draw, he is not there just to make up the numbers either. He reached the quarter-finals in Santiago as well as Rome and the semi-finals in Houston.

On Tuesday he starts again on Court 8 against Mattia Bellucci, the world No.167 from Italy and a man he has never played before. No matter - the whole business of qualifying is, Hanfmann thinks, the key to his success.

>> BEST PHOTOS FROM DAY 1 OF QUALIFYING

“The satisfaction is definitely there (after qualifying for the main draw), but it's short-lived,” he told atptour.com. “Because then once you're there, you want to keep going. I think what helped me in the past is to get into a match rhythm and go far into the tournament because I've shown that when I get my matches, that I'm actually dangerous.”

And at the age of 31, Hanfmann is old enough and wise enough to play to his own strengths – namely, that thumping forehand – and let the other man worry about finding a way to deal with them.

Three to watch

Court 12: Ana Konjuh (CRO) v Yanina Wickmayer (BEL)

This is the battle of comeback queens: Konjuh has spent much of the past five years dealing with injuries while Wickmayer is still making her way back after giving birth to her daughter Luana in 2021. Konjuh is only 25 but she has been making headlines for a decade.

A prodigiously talented teenager, she won the junior Australian and US Opens, won her first WTA title at 17 and looked ready to be a world beater. Or she was until her elbow started to give out and she faced four rounds of surgery to fix the problem. “I don’t have a plan B,” she said simply of her determination to keep playing at all costs.

Court 14: Aslan Karatsev v Pierre-Hugues Herbert (FRA)

A few years ago, this is the sort of match that would be a tasty treat in the later stages of a main draw and probably on a show court. But life seldom runs according to plan and Karatsev, the 2021 Australian Open semi-finalist and the former world No.15, is trying to pick a path back to the top after a year spent dealing with off-court issues. He showed signs that he was maybe on his way after reaching the semi-finals in Madrid a couple of weeks ago.

Herbert, meanwhile, missed six months of last year with a left knee injury only to come back to the Challenger tour this spring and pick up an abdominal injury. He is now ranked No.396. The journey back starts here.

Court 10: Taylor Townsend (USA) v Natalija Stevanovic (SRB)

These days, Townsend is a new woman. Not only is she the proud mum of two-year-old Aydn Aubrey but she is determined to experience whatever the tennis tour can throw at her.

In the past, she would dodge most of the European clay-court swing and prepare for Roland-Garros back in the States. There she was in her comfort zone. But this year, she wanted to push herself and heading to Madrid and Rome, she discovered that she loves the two cities and that her tennis can thrive on the red clay (she beat Jessica Pegula, the world No.3, in Rome).

On Tuesday, she faces the diminutive Stevanovic who stands just 5ft 4ins (1.64m) and is ranked No.214 in the world and after her Roman adventure, the odds are stacking nicely in Townsend’s favour.