Roland Garros 2026's Grand Slam debuts: Tagger, Vandewinkel, Quevedo and more

12m read 22 May 2026 6h ago

Jimmie48/WTA

Summary

The 10 players making their Grand Slam debuts at Roland Garros 2026 include 2025 girls' champion Lilli Tagger, Tampico WTA 125 champion Hanne Vandewinkel and former junior No. 5 Kaitlin Quevedo.

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Hot shots: Lilli Tagger's five best one-handed backhands in Jiujiang

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Ten players will make their Grand Slam main-draw debuts at Roland Garros 2026 -- two direct entrants, five qualifiers and three wild cards. Get to know them here:

Susan Bandecchi (SUI)

Five years ago, playing the first tour-level qualifying event of her career, Susan Bandecchi came within a match of her main-draw debut at Roland Garros 2021, defeating Tsvetana Pironkova but falling to Storm Hunter in the final round.

Half a decade and 12 attempts later, the 27-year-old Swiss player has sealed that milestone at last -- and she did it the hard way. In the first round of qualifying this week, Bandecchi overcame home hope Chloe Paquet 2-6, 7-5, 6-4. She then needed to save two match points to defeat Dominika Salkova 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, but sailed through her final round 6-1, 6-2 in just 58 minutes over Viktoria Hruncakova.

Currently ranked No. 215, Bandecchi got as high as No. 164 in March 2022. She made her WTA main-draw debut as a wild card at Lausanne 2021, and won her only tour-level match to date over Oceane Dodin at the same tournament the following year. She'll have the chance to notch another against No. 31 seed Cristina Bucsa.

Ksenia Efremova (FRA)

France's Ksenia Efremova, the 17-year-old junior No. 1 and reigning Australian Open girls' champion, will be the youngest player in this year's Roland Garros main draw.

The teenager, who reached her first ITF W35 final last December in New Delhi, has been competing at WTA 125 and qualifying level since April. Efremova scored her career-best victory to date over Lulu Sun in Madrid qualifying, and won her first two sets against Top 100 opponents against Moyuka Uchijima and Tamara Korpatsch in the Saint-Malo and Paris WTA 125 events respectively. Now ranked No. 625, she will face a Top 50 opponent for the first time when she takes on No. 18 seed Sorana Cirstea in the first round.

It will also be a family milestone for Efremova. Her mother, Julia, reached a career high of No. 285 in 2005, and competed in seven WTA qualifying draws between 2003 and 2007, but did not make a tour-level main draw.

Guo Hanyu (CHN)

Though China's Guo Hanyu made her WTA main-draw debut in singles back in 2017 when she qualified for Tianjin, her doubles career took off first. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, she returned to action in 2023 and finished that season in the doubles Top 100, where she has remained since; highlights include six WTA titles and a WTA 1000 final at Cincinnati 2025 alongside Alexandra Panova.

Last year, Guo turned her scheduling focus to singles -- a decision that paid off. She scored her first Top 50 win over Yulia Putintseva in Montreal, won two ITF W50 titles in Shenzhen and Guiyang, and cut her year-end ranking from No. 505 to No. 168.

The 28-year-old has continued to rise in 2026. She reached her first WTA 125 final in Midland in February, and is now up to No. 168. In her second Slam qualifying draw, she defeated Miriam Bulgaru, Despina Papamichail and Sofia Costoulas without dropping a set this week.

Guo names Gael Monfils as the player she first made her feel that tennis was a "fun sport", and her love of aggressive shot-making has carried over from her doubles into her singles. Over her three qualifying matches, she came to net 88 times, and won 52 of those points. Guo will face McCartney Kessler in the first round.

Sinja Kraus (AUT)

Sinja Kraus made her WTA main-draw debut as a wild card at Linz 2021, cracked the Top 200 the following August and won her first tour-level match at Bogota 2023. But it's in the past year-and-a-half that the 24-year-old Austrian has surged up a level.

All eight of her Top 100 wins have come since the start of 2025, including a career-best victory over Anastasia Potapova in Madrid qualifying last month. Potapova went on to reach the semifinals as a lucky loser. Kraus cut her year-end ranking from No. 222 to No. 105 in 2025, claiming her first WTA 125 title in Cali on clay in October, and she broke into the Top 100 in February.

Now ranked No. 101, Kraus was guaranteed a Grand Slam main-draw debut at Wimbledon as the last direct entry this week. But she didn't feel like waiting any longer -- at her 13th attempt, she navigated a Grand Slam qualifying draw for the first time, defeating Celine Naef, Noma Noha Akugue and Anna-Lena Friedsam in Paris. She'll take on No. 11 seed Belinda Bencic in the first round.

Elena Pridankina

A former Top 30 junior, Elena Pridankina's most notable WTA results prior to this week came in China. She scored her first career Top 100 win over Yuliia Starodubtseva in 2024 Guangzhou qualifying, making her tour-level debut as a lucky loser at that event. She's claimed two WTA main-draw wins so far in her career, making the second round of Jiujiang in 2024 and 2025 -- the latter by defeating Yuan Yue in a 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(5) barnburner, saving two match points and pulling off a brilliant tweener along the way.

The big-hitting 20-year-old rose to her career high of No. 168 last May, but was down at No. 220 this week. Nonetheless, Pridankina came through Grand Slam qualifying for the first time at her fifth attempt, defeating Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, Julia Avdeeva and Himeno Sakatsume to make the main draw, where she will face Oleksandra Oliynykova.

Kaitlin Quevedo (ESP)

When Kaitlin Quevedo was born in February 2006, Venus Williams was already a five-time Grand Slam champion. In an unlikely cross-generational matchup two decades on, Quevedo defeated Williams 6-2, 6-4 to notch her first WTA 1000 victory last month on home soil in Madrid.

That was the continuation of a rapid rise for Quevedo, a former Top 5 junior who was born in Florida to an American mother and a Spanish father from the Canary Islands. Having trained at the TEC Carles Ferrer Salat in Barcelona since the age of 17, she began playing under the Spanish flag in 2024, and cut her year-end ranking from No, 317 to No. 144 the following year -- with her biggest title, appropriately, coming at the Maspalomas ITF W100 on Gran Canaria.

Quevedo began 2026 with a bang, qualifying for her tour-level debut in Auckland then scoring a career-best win over Peyton Stearns in the first round. She also made her Billie Jean King Cup debut in April, going unbeaten in both of her rubbers against Slovenia.

At a career high of No. 127 this week, Quevedo is on an eight-match winning streak. Earlier this month, she captured the Saint-Gaudens ITF W75 title without dropping a set; this week, she battled through a trio of three-setters over Nuria Brancaccio, Teodora Kostovic and Guiomar Maristany Zuleta De Reales to navigate her second Grand Slam qualifying draw. She'll get the chance to make it nine in a row against wild card Leolia Jeanjean.

Lilli Tagger (AUT)

One year after being crowned the Roland Garros junior champion, Lilli Tagger has gained direct entry to the main draw. At a career high of No. 91 this week, the 18-year-old Austrian is the youngest player in the Top 100.

Tagger has drawn attention for her stylish game -- her rare one-handed backhand in particular, which she unleashes in a manner reminiscent of Belgian great Justine Henin, has filled highlight reels -- but her rapid rise over the past two years demonstrates there's real substance as well. In 2025, she cut her year-end ranking from No. 977 to No. 153, ending her season by making the Jiujiang final on her WTA main-draw debut (a run that included a spectacular semifinal win over defending champion Viktorija Golubic from triple match point down).

Tagger has built on that in 2026. On her Grand Slam qualifying debut, she made the final qualifying round at the Australian Open. She followed that with her biggest title to date at the Fujairah ITF W100. In April, in front of her home crowd in Linz, she made her first WTA 500 quarterfinal with wins over Paula Badosa and Liudmila Samsonova -- the latter the first Top 30 victory of her career. That run enabled her to become the first 2008-born player to enter the Top 100.

Tagger also has tennis connections on her side. She's coached by 2010 Roland Garros champion Francesca Schiavone -- the last woman with a one-handed backhand to lift a major trophy -- and shares a manager, Alex Vittur, with ATP No. 1 Jannik Sinner, who has spoken highly of her potential. Tagger will take on No. 32 seed Wang Xinyu in the first round.

Alice Tubello (FRA)

By the end of 2024, Alice Tubello had worked her way up to her career high ranking of No. 219 -- enough to gain direct entry to a Grand Slam qualifying draw for the first time at the 2025 Australian Open, where she fell in three sets to Maria Timofeeva. But immediately after that, an injury that required two surgeries sidelined the Frenchwoman for the next seven months.

But after being ranked as low as No. 712 last August, the 25-year-old has climbed all the way back to No. 226 this week. Since September, she's won ITF W50 titles on clay in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer and Bujumbura, and she reached her first WTA 125 semifinal in Istanbul earlier this month. Tubello's reward is a main-draw wild card, and a first-round meeting with Donna Vekic in her tour-level debut.

Akasha Urhobo (USA)

Akasha Urhobo, the 19-year-old American who received the USTA's reciprocal wild card after winning the clay-court points race among Americans over the past two months, is -- unexpectedly, given the surface -- a committed net-rusher. Now coached by Jermaine Jenkins, Venus Williams's former hitting partner, Urhobo's style stems from being taught by her father, a fan of Pat Rafter and Pete Sampras, from the age of two.

At 17, Urhobo claimed her first ITF W75 title two years ago in Zephyrhills, defeating Ann Li and Iva Jovic along the way. In 2026, she's delivered consistency as well to rise from No. 332 at the start of the year to her current No. 184. Her 29-7 season record to date includes three ITF W35 titles, all on Floridian green clay, and her first ITF W100 final in Bonita Springs.

Urhobo posted a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Bianca Andreescu to win the first of those titles in Weston in January, and claimed her first tour-level win over Solana Sierra (via retirement) as a qualifier in Charleston. She'll face Katie Boulter in the first round next week.

Hanne Vandewinkel (BEL)

Hanne Vandewinkel's most high-profile performances have come in Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers action as Belgium faced the United States. Two years ago, as a 19-year-old ranked No. 278 facing a Top 30 opponent for the first time, she stretched Emma Navarro all the way in a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 loss in Orlando. Last month, in a rematch between the two countries on her home turf in Ostend, she stunned Iva Jovic 7-6(3), 6-3 -- her first Top 20 win -- to spearhead a Belgian victory.

In between, Vandewinkel's net-rushing, finesse-heavy game has been doing damage on the professional circuit. She claimed her first WTA 125 title last October in Tampico, cutting her year-end ranking from No. 225 to No. 125 in 2025. In February and March this year, Vandewinkel compiled a 19-match winning streak encompassing the Pune W75, Bengaluru W100 and Trnava W75 titles, followed by the Maribor W75 final, to surge into the Top 100. Her tour-level debut followed in Bogota, where she reached the second round, and she is now ranked No. 102.

The 22-year-old's accomplishments are all the more remarkable given that she balances tour life with studying for a medical degree from the University of Leuven, where she is in her second year. Last month, Vandewinkel told the Love All Podcast that her post-tennis ambition is to become a doctor -- but for now, the "ability to change focus" is a boon. When she's at tournaments, she has a "golden rule" about not studying; equally, having to turn to her books prevents her from over-thinking about tennis.

Having had plenty of career milestones against American players already, another one is in store for Vandewinkel in Paris -- she will face No. 19 seed Madison Keys in her Grand Slam debut.

Alex Macpherson

Summary

The 10 players making their Grand Slam debuts at Roland Garros 2026 include 2025 girls' champion Lilli Tagger, Tampico WTA 125 champion Hanne Vandewinkel and former junior No. 5 Kaitlin Quevedo.

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