The first day of the Kungens Kanna & Drottningens Pris has come to an end and it proved to be a real baptism of fire for the domestic qualifiers. Only five out of 33 Swedes managed to make it through to the qualifying finals.
Of the 63 players who took part in qualifying today 33 of them were Swedes. As the first day of the event comes to an end it is clear that only five Swedes manage to survive the tough first round of qualification.
– This is, despite the statistics, not a catastrophic outcome for the Swedes considering that the competition is at a world class level, with many of the competing international players being top ranked in their respective countries, said tournament director Joe Beaton.
The Swedish hope for tomorrow’s qualifying final is Nelly Mezan, Farsta TK as the lone representative in the girls’ class and in the boys’ class we are crossing our fingers for the duo from Påvelund, Måns Dahlberg / Wilmer Dahl, Linus Videhult from Västerås and Adam Granath from Helsingborg. These remaining Swedes showed today that they are indeed capable of keeping up with the tough competition at the tournament, which hopefully suggests a bright future for Swedish tennis.
Tomorrow we look forward to the exciting qualification finals and the grand opening ceremony with all the 96 players in the main tournament from over 30 countries.
