Paris: India's Ankita Raina earned a hard-fought win against Jovana Jovic of Serbia to progress to the second round of the French Open qualifiers.
On Tuesday, Ankita defeated Jovana 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in match that lasted two hours and 47 minutes. The 27-year-old will next take on Japan's Kurumi Nara, seeded 22nd.
Ankita, who is India's top-ranked woman tennis player, has not gone beyond the second round at the Grand Slam qualifiers and she would need to win two more matches to make it to the main draw of the clay court grand slam.
Earlier on Monday, Prajnesh Gunneswaran had gone past Turkey's Cem Ilkel to advance to the second round of the men's singles qualifying event. Prajnesh had defeated Ilkel 6-3, 6-1 after losing his service early in his opening round of the qualifier. He is slated to face Australia's Aleksandar Vukic on Wednesday.
Sumit Nagal and Ramkumar Ramanathan have, however, bowed out of the competition after losing their respective first round matches of the qualifying event.
The main draw of the grand slam is slated to start from September 27.
Meanwhile, Canada's Bianca Andreescu will miss the remainder of the 2020 season including the upcoming French Open to focus on her 'health and training'.
"I have come to the difficult decision to skip the clay court swing this year and will be taking the remainder of the season off to focus on my health and training," Andreescu said in a statement.
The Canadian further stated that she is looking forward to the next year's Tokyo Olympics and she wants to utilise this time in improving her game.
"As hard as it was to come to this conclusion, I have so much to look forward to in 2021, including the Olympics. I want to use this time to focus on my game so I can come back stronger and better than ever," she added.
The 20-year-old joins defending Roland Garros champion Ashleigh Barty and newly-crowned US Open winner Naomi Osaka on the absentee list for the tournament.
The French Open is scheduled from September 27 to October 11 and stars like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal have already confirmed their availability for the competition.
