Gabriela Sabatiniformer number 3 in the world, and Gisela Dulko will perform this Tuesday at the Roland Garros Legends Tournamentsecond Grand Slam of the year that is taking place in Pariswhen measured against Americans Lindsay Davenport and Mary Joe Fernandez.
The match for the first round of the women’s doubles tournament of Legends will take place in the court Suzane Lenglen, starting at 6 in the morning (Argentine time).
Sabatini and Dulko have been preparing for a few days at the Jean Bouin clublocated about 200 meters from Roland Garrosas an annex to the second Grand Slam of the season.
That was the scenario chosen by the Argentines to get in shape for this Legends tournament that will have them as protagonists.
Gaby has been in Paris since last Friday when he arrived from Zürich, where he lives for most of the year, and once in the French capital he met Dulko, who arrived on Saturday from Buenos Aires.
exemplary careers
Sabatini was born in the Federal Capital, He turned 52 on May 16 and retired as a professional tennis player in 1996.. Within his successful career won 27 titles as a professional, including the US Open in 1990while she was a finalist at Wimbledon the following year and fell in the final with Germany’s Steffi Graf.
Gaby was No. 3 in the world in singles; she also added 14 trophies in doubles (including Wimbledon 1988, with Graf as a partner), plus three finals at Roland Garros, also with the German as part of the pairing.
On your side, Dulko quit tennis professional in 2012, he won 4 singles titles and 17 doubles titles, his specialty together with the Italian Flavia Pennetta. Achievement as a doubles player the 2010 Masters and the 2011 Australian Open.
How was the duo born?
In January of this year, Sabatini and Dulko got together to play a paddle tennis match, which through social networks and reached the Roland Garros authorities.
The organizers of the Parisian contest were enthusiastic and raised the invitation to the Argentines to join the Legends Trophy exhibition tournament.
After sharing a couple of training sessions in Argentina, Sabatini traveled to Europe and then Dulko did. the last saturday they got back together and began work in the French capital.
In these early trials, As soon as they arrived in Paris, Gaby and Gisela tried to adapt to the surface and to the balls that will be used during the Legends contest.
Presentation of the Legends Trophy
Also, this Monday was presented el Legends Trophywhat will have 16 participants -both men and women- divided into 8 doubles teams in two groups of 4, with the system of all against all.
In between This Tuesday and Friday the three games of each zone will be playedand alone the winner team of each group will advance to the final scheduled for Saturday next.
In addition to Dulko-Sabatini and their Davenport-Fernandez rivals, other former players will also be presented highlighted as Iva Majoli (Croatia) and Mary Pierce (France); Pennetta y Francesca Schiavone (Italy); Tatiana Golovin and Nathalie Tauziat (France); Daniela Hantuchova (Slovakia) y Martina Navratilova (USA); Chanda Rubin (USA) y Sandrine Testud (France); Rennae Stubbs (Australia) y Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria).
For its part, in the Men’s Legends tournament the couples annotated son: Marcos Baghdatis (Chipre)–Goran Ivanisevic (Croatia); Henry Leconte-Michael Speech (France); Sebastian Grosjean-Cedric Pioline (France); Nicholas Escudé-Paul Henri Mathieu (France); Arnaud Clement-Fabrice Santoro (France); Mansour Bahrami-Julien Benneteau (France); guy Forget (France)–Tommy Haas (Germany) and Xavier Malisse (Belgium)–Mats Wilander (Sweden).