Roland-Garros 2012 starts Tuesday, May 22: Haas, Ginepri in Qualifying Action

In just a few hours, the French Open 2012 grand slam starts with live action online starting with men's qualifying first round matches. There are a total of 16 slots reserved for the hard-working tennis players who must beat three opponents before securing a precious spot in the singles main draw. The list of those participating is a mixture of old veterans and young players - some with millions of dollars and career earnings, and some with "just" a few hundred thousand. But their goal is the same - come the singles first round of the French Open this coming weekend, they want to be part of the second Grand Slam of the year.

128 players take to court to start the men's singles qualifying matches. They are organized into 16 groups of eight players each, and the top two ranked players in each group are seeded. Four of the players in qualifying are actually ranked 104 or higher according to this week's ATP tennis rankings. This means that by right, they should actually have qualified outright into the singles main draw. However, these players were not in the top 104 at the time the cut-off was made last April. The top two seeds belong to the top 100 - they are world no. 89 Marinko Matisevic of Australia and world no. 100 Matthias Bachinger of Germany. Check out the complete listing of the French Open 2012 men's qualifying top 16 seeds at the bottom of the post.

Going through the list of players in the men's qualifying round, two of them actually have been ranked in the top 15, one as high as world no. 2. Tommy Haas of Germany was once the top-ranked German in the early years of this century. In 2002, he achieved a career-high world ranking of #2. In 2001, Haas had his best year. He won 4 ATP titles, had a total of 57 matches won for the year, and earned $1.5 million in prize money. His four titles that year was the first for a German since Boris Becker won five in 1996. Overall, Haas has won a total of $10,291,792 for his whole career. Putting that in perspective, he has actually outearned Jo-Wilfried Tsonga so far, the current world no. 5.

Another player going for a slot in the men's singles main draw is Robby Ginepri. Once ranked as high as no. 15, the American has struggled with injuries in recent years. In 2005, Ginepri had his banner year. He captured his first ATP title in Indianapolis beating Andy Roddick, the top-ranked American at that time. He scored a win over world no. 4 Marat Safin on his way to the semi-finals at Cincinnati where he lost to top-ranked Roger Federer. In the US Open that year, he scored consecutive five-set wins over Tommy Haas, Richard Gasquet, and Guillermo Coria on his way to his first ever semi-final at a Grand Slam. He lost to fellow American Andre Agassi who was playing his last tennis tournament. Ginepri has won $3,691,358 in his career.

Other players to watch in this year's qualifying rounds are former top 50 players including no. 4-seed Karol Beck of Slovakia (career high ranking = 36), no. 8-seed Horacio Zeballos of Argentina (career high ranking = 41), no. 12-seed Michael Berrer of Germany (career high ranking = 42), unseeded Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan (career high ranking = 33), and Florent Serra of Italy (career high ranking = 36). Let the action begin at Roland-Garros. Best regards to all those participating in the men's qualifying rounds.

Roland-Garros 2012 French Open Men's Qualifying Top 16 Seeds

Rank Name COUNTRY [Seed]

89 MATOSEVIC, Marinko AUS [1]
100 BACHINGER, Matthias GER [2]
103 ZOPP, Jurgen EST [3]
104 BECK, Karol SVK [4]
105 BRANDS, Daniel GER [5]
106 CAPDEVILLE, Paul CHI [7]
107 GIL, Frederico POR [7]
108 ZEBALLOS, Horacio ARG [8]
109 GOFFIN, David BEL [9]
110 RUSSELL, Michael USA [10]
112 HAAS, Tommy GER [11]
114 BERRER, Michael GER [12]
116 BAUTISTA-AGUT, Roberto ESP [13]
117 DELBONIS, Federico ARG [14]
119 VEIC, Antonio CRO [15]
121 DUTRA SILVA, Rogerio BRA [16]