Wimbledon Wild Cards 2010

steven · Tennis legend

Wimbledon Wild Cards 2010

Shhh · Challenger level

Total nonsense. a 16 player play off with the two finalists received qualifying wild cards....why, one of them will have just lost a match....thats no way to send someone froward. far better to have 8 player play offs, maybe a few of them (can be held at different venues to ease congestion) with the winners all moving on having won three matches on the green stuff.

To be fair, I wrote a list of common sense suggestions to Roger Draper last year, he forwarded it on to Paul Hutchings who invited to meet with me at NTC. My young boy was quite sick on the day so the appoitment was never carried out.

seagull · Hall of fame

So the only certain player to meet the requirements is Boggo!

I really hope he does not get one. Far better to be seeded in qualifying and prove he can get there by right, rather than get drawn against someone like Cilic and everyone moan that he can't even win a set

wolf · Tennis legend

I don't get the eight players limit. AT ALL.

If Stoop dog and Broady move their ranking up a little bit then quite concievably we could have eight candidates for the women's wild cards.

Which could force Anne K to use her PR as one is reserved for the girls champion from last year.

But maybe Anne K or KOB could get a DA, Anne only has 31 points to defend until cut-off. KOB has 120, all she needs is a couple of wins at a tour level from somewhere.

Also Anna Smith has zero points to defend until the cut-off, so you never know.

See this is where the eight players limit falls down. We then have a number of players who are are more than capable of winning matches in qualifying, but won't get wild cards. Yes there's always the play-off, but only two can get through from that.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

The 8 player limit does have that problem... if they are only to recommend 8 players and they have to be in the top 250, what happens if somehow we managed to get 9 players in the top 250 (but none in the top 100) and then one of them can't get a wild card despite meeting the criteria.

indiana · Tennis legend

I don't see the 8 player thing as such a potential problem, given it is presumably not set in stone.

The fact is that we currently have just 5 women ( including Elena ) inside the top 250 and while we hope for ( and indeed maybe expect ) more during this year, how many more will reach the top 250 prior to Wimbledon who knows.

The LTA are presumably more considering things with rankings as they are now, and even the LTA can surely quite easily adapt their recommendations to the scenarios given by Wolf and FD.

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 19th of March 2010 02:00:54 PM

Vamos08 · Intermediate Club Player

We are such good Boggo fans:

"DON'T play Davis Cup!" and "DON'T get a wildcard for Wimbledon!"

indiana · Tennis legend

I think Boggo may be past caring what others think or have been led to think.

Based on the above he should be recommended for a WC. If he is then awarded one and fancies accepting it, go for it mate !

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 19th of March 2010 02:06:34 PM

spud · Challenger qualifying

Eaton/Inglot should definitely get a dubs WC.

DavidC · Tennis legend

10 guaranteed wildcards is perfectly reasonable given that the LTA do not own Wimbledon, and the AELTC see promoting the tournament as the top international tennis tournament (with WCs liberally allocated to non-Brits) as a high priority.

The key issues as I see it are transparency and flexibility. The scheme is semi-transparent in that there is a clear recommendation of a main draw WC to anyone inside the top 250 making the list, and that is an improvement on some years ago when no-one had any idea what they had to do in order to be recommended. However getting onto the list is more opaque, as it mentions "ranking, recent form, professional attitude, court surface and behaviour" as criteria for determining who is on the list - so being in the top 250 is no guarantee of making it. Some of those factors are highly subjective, and we will have to wait and see how they are applied. I hope that political considerations concerning non-AEGON funded players etc. will not be brought to bear within the cloak of one of those subjective qualities.

Flexibility comes into play over the allocation of surplus qualifying WCs The committee always meets on the Monday of Queens to make most decisions, though one or two WCs are usually provisionally allocated dependent on proving fitness and/or form during the week, but often no decision is made about one or two. With the Main Draw WCs there is no chance of additional ones going to Brits - anyone worthy should be in the list of 8 - but the situation is different with those for qualifying. The committee often fail to come up with enough other agreed names for these places and they usually end up with semi-finalists (who may or may not be beaten, as they end the wildcard play-off once the available places have been filled). However I think it would be better for the LTA to be invited to submit additional names who will be considered in the event that the Committee does not provisionally allocate all the remaining qualifying wildcards to non-Brits. This wouldnt help for vacancies that emerge during the following week, but when known on the Monday seems to me more likely to find their way to deserving players than being given to semi-finalists.

Regarding Wolfs comment about one main draw WC for the junior girls winner definitely not going to a Brit, that isnt necessarily the case as the following article shows:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/sports/33130/noppawan-hoping-for-wimbledon-wild-card

jamatthews · Strong Club Player

That article doesn't show anything. They're asking the wrong people. The ITF rule is that qualifying WCs go to the winners, and it's the AELTC that choose to give MD WCs to the winner. Barring exceptional circumstances I see no reason why that will change this year.

DavidC · Tennis legend

jamatthews wrote:

That article doesn't show anything. They're asking the wrong people. The ITF rule is that qualifying WCs go to the winners, and it's the AELTC that choose to give MD WCs to the winner. Barring exceptional circumstances I see no reason why that will change this year.

I agree that it is likely that Noppawan will end up with a WC, as the circumstances where the LTA can put forward 8 Brits with MD recommendation are unlikely to happen, but it is not guaranteed. If the AELTC find 8 candidates that they prefer then at the moment the defence against favouritism is easy. The non-Brits who have been upgraded (Wozniacki & Radwanska x 2) had rankings of 201, 106 and 192 at the time of the committee meeting. Noppawan has yet to show the same level of form, and is currently ranked 340, well below the ranking being asked of Brits.

wolf · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:

I don't see the 8 player thing as such a potential problem, given it is presumably not set in stone.

The LTA are presumably more considering things with rankings as they are now, and even the LTA can surely quite easily adapt their recommendations to the scenarios given by Wolf and FD.

I don't see them changing it, rules are rules and they stuck by them last year.

If more than eight players deserve wild cards, they should give more than eight. If less than eight deserve wild cards, then they should give less than eight. I just can't understand it.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Naming names Robson and Watson are certainties for main draw wildcards assuming they are fit and well and added to them on current form and ranking O'Brien, Keothavong, Cavaday, South, Stoop and Broady should get one as well. So a couple of these players will be disappointed probably. Noppawan will not get a wild card in my opinion given her age and the fact she is only guaranteed a QWC. At the moment there are no obvious international players who would warrant a wild card so I expect Wimbledon to hand out probably six on the woman's side to Brits.

On the men's side Boggo won't get a wild card so what happens if there are no Brits with a top 250 ranking so there will have to be some leeway there.

LadyTigress · County player

I'll be keeping a close eye on this. Will be very interested to see who gets the WC's. I'm thinking about going to Wimbly qualies this year (couldn't last year as was at a London exo event watching the year's only action of Rafa on grass, amongst others), can anyone help me out and tell me what the procedure is for showing up, times, getting in, getting tickets, prices etc?!