Tennis: Erakovic gets plum centre court match at French Open

Marina Erakovic. Photo / Dean Purcell

Kiwi tennis number one Marina Erakovic will kick off the centre court action at the French Open in Paris tonight.

Erakovic joins a star studded line-up on court Philippe Chatrier for her first round singles match against fourth seeded Czech Petra Kvitova. It's the first time the 27 year old Aucklander has graced centre court at a Grand Slam.

"I'm very excited and looking forward to it. It's a very nice court and I am sure the atmosphere will be great." Erakovic said.

Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams follow Erakovic onto centre court for their first round matches.

Although Erakovic will be a rank underdog against Kvitova having lost to her four times including in the second round at Roland Garros last year, she won't have a huge crowd element to contend with.

The French fans are notoriously slow to arrive to centre court at the start of the day and the 15000 capacity court is likely to be half empty for the match which starts just after 9pm tonight.

The three Kiwi men all start their doubles campaigns this evening. It's the first time since 1985 that three New Zealand men have featured in the French Open doubles.

Michael Venus and his Croatian partner Mate Pavic fresh from their title success in Nice, play the first match on court eight from 9pm against Austria's Oliver Marach and Spaniard Pablo Andujar.

New Zealand's top ranked doubles player Artem Sitak at a career best 43 on the ATP rankings, and his partner American Nicolas Monroe, are also on court eight in the last match of the day.

They square off against German Dustin Brown and Austria's Andreas Haider-Maurer.

Marcus Daniell in his Grand Slam debut alongside Belgian Steve Darcis meet the seventh seeds, Poland's Marcin Matkowski and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic in the last match of the day on court 11.

Matt Brown travelled to Paris with Emirates Airline.