{"id":690505,"date":"2026-05-24T00:44:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T00:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690505\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T00:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T00:44:32","slug":"slam-champs-no-1s-and-young-guns-five-to-watch-in-womens-qualifying-roland-garros-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690505\/","title":{"rendered":"Slam champs, No.1s and young guns: Five to watch in women\u2019s qualifying &#8211; Roland-Garros 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sloane Stephens\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A former runner-up who boasts a 35-13 career main draw record on the Parisian clay, American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/players\/21500-s.stephens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sloane Stephens<\/a> lays claim to one of the most impressive clay court CVs of any women on tour, let alone in the qualifying draw.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Known for her fleet feet and rock-solid backhand, the former world No.3 was a set from the title eight years ago in Paris. <\/p>\n<p>Stephens, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/en-us\/article\/roland-garros-2018-simona-halep-beats-sloane-stephens-to-win-womens-singles-title\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">fell to Simona Halep in that thrilling 2018 final<\/a>, has reached the second week in Paris a whopping nine times. After missing several months due to a right foot stress fracture in 2025, 33-year-old Stephens is on the rise again. She has climbed from outside the top 1000 to No.362 in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The former US Open champion will face fellow American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rolandgarros.com\/fr-fr\/players\/51095-cys.lee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Carol Young Suh Lee<\/a> in the first round. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sloane Stephens\u00a0 A former runner-up who boasts a 35-13 career main draw record on the Parisian clay, American&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-690505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}