Federer and Kyrgios big name absentees from French Open as Nadal eyes 13th title

The French Open has released its list of competitors for the rescheduled tournament, with Roger Federer and Nick Kyrgios the big-name absentees.

Federer continues to be out due to a setback suffered in his rehabilitation from knee surgery and is still focused on playing in 2021.

Kyrgios meanwhile continues to be vocal about his criticism of the way major tourn aments are handling the Covid-19 situation and as such won’t be playing.

On the women’s side of the draw Saisai Zheng, Lin Zhu, Yafan Wang, Anastasia Potapova, Samantha Stosur, Shuai Peng and Xiyu Wang are all out.

Carla Suarez Navarro, who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma is also absent.

Kevin Anderson and Daria Gavrilova are the two highest profile players who are using protected ranking to enter.

Rafael Nadal is the top seed for the men's draw as he bids to win a 13th title.

In the women's draw Ashleigh Barty is the top seed as the defending champion but her participation is in doubt given some of her comments that follow a similar vein to those of Kyrgios.

The tournament will start on September 21 and run until October 11.

Everything is still subject to how things proceed at the US Open and how the situation with the pandemic develops in France.