World No.190 Marco Trungelliti of Argentina has completed a nine-hour drive that has landed him in Paris where he’ll become the lucky loser to take Nick Kyrgios’ place in the Roland Garros men’s singles draw (Kyrgios pulled out on Sunday with a lingering elbow issue). For many hours on Sunday, Twitter account @FueBeana chronicled the adventures of the 28-year-old who had left Paris to play in a Challenger at Barcelona.
The Argentine will join seven other lucky losers that have all made their way into the men’s singles draw. All he has to do is wake up on Monday and sign in on the official lucky loser list in the tournament’s office. He didn't do so today because he had already left for his next event, figuring that his work in Paris was done for the year. Hence the word lucky...
The high number of lucky losers in this year’s main draw is a product, no doubt of the ATP’s decision to award half of first-round prize money to players who withdraw before their first match, rather than none of it.
Trungelliti is set to split 40,000 Euros with Nick Kyrgios, or about $23,000. And, according to Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times, Trungelliti gets to keep his qualifying prize money of 21,000 Euros, bringing his total purse to $41,000 Euros if he loses to Bernard Tomic on Monday.