Scottish tennis player Andy Murray, winner of three Grand Slam titles and current number 110 in the world, has received an invitation to play Roland Garros, the third 'big' of the season, has confirmed the organization of the tournament. The 33-year-old, champion of the US Open in 2012 and Wimbledon in 2012 and 2016, was one of eight male players – the only non-French player – who have been given a wild card for the main draw of the Parisian tournament, which will be played from September 27 to October 11. Canadian Eugénie Bouchard (168th in the WTA ranking) also received another invitation.
Continued injuries have prevented the Briton, a finalist in Paris in 2016, from competing in the Philippe-Chatrier since 2017. In early September, Murray won his first Grand Slam singles match in nearly two years, trailing Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka to advance to the second round of the US Open. However, he fell to Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in their next match.
The Briton played five games in 10 days at the Western & Southern Open and the US Open, which were his first events of the year, having been off the slopes with a pelvic injury since last November. In the first of the tournaments, he achieved his first win over a 'Top 10' player since 2017 by defeating German Alexander Zverev.
Eugenie Bouchard has just been a finalist in the Istanbul tournament, where Romanian Patricia Maria Tig snatched the title from her. She had not gone that far in a WTA competition for more than four years and was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2014, the year she reached the same round in Australia and was a finalist at Wimbledon. For the main draw, Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova (156th) has also been invited, who reached the quarterfinals at the US Open after three years without playing to be a mother.