Murray/Marray ended up either one out or as a DA, so potentially two doubles wild cards were either not given or have not been announced.

steven wrote:

---

It's always such a cop-out giving the remaining WCS to the next 3 DAs. Interesting too, because I know for sure that Tomic had his eye on one (it's been all over the Aussie press) and I believe at least one of the other two non-GB Queen's WCs might have been holding out hope too.

Nice to see that the AELTC has at least been decent enough to give the Bogster a doubles WC. The Count and I did our best to remind them of that possibility on Twitter yesterday, so we'll delude ourselves that that's what tipped the balance. LOL

Btw the URL has changed from wildcards_2010 to 2010_wildcards, i.e.:

http://aeltc2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/pdf/2010_wildcards.pdf

---

This is bordering on a farce compared to the other grand slams. I had a look at the wild cards given out in the last three slams and look how it compares:

2010 French Open: 6 French + 1 American + 1 Australian. (American & Australian wild cards given as part of a reciprocal agreement with US & Australian Opens).

2010 Australian Open: 5 Australians (one of them getting through the Australian Open WC Play-Offs) + 1 French + 1 American + 1 Kazakh (wild card is given to the top Asian player as tournament brands itself as the Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific).

2009 US Open: 6 Americans + 1 French + 1 American.

Look at the support these Slams give their own players. Also, the reciprocal agreements in place ensure that one of their country's players will receive an opportunity at the other slams.

This LTA rule of a player having to be ranked within the top 250 to be recommended is absolute nonsense. Couple this with Wimbledon's bizarre decision making where they just waste their three remaining wild cards on the next three direct acceptances and you have a laughable situation.

If it was me, this would be the wild card criteria for Wimbledon:

4 Brits (Alex Bogdanovic, Jamie Baker, James Ward & Dan Evans would have been my 2010 choices)
1 French
1 US
1 Australian - Get the reciprocal agreements in place and give our own players the chance to compete in the main draws of the other slams.
1 other - Leave a wild card open for the discretion of the tournament organisers. Could be useful for situations where a big name is not on the direct acceptance list, like in 2001 when three-time runner up Goran Ivanisevic got one. If there are no suitable candidates, then give it to another Brit.

Those who have been to Wimbledon in the past will know how much support the Brits get on the outside courts. With Andy Murray guaranteed to be on Centre Court & Court No.1, Jamie Baker will be the only British male singles player who Brits will have a chance to support on the other courts this year. Crazy or what?

I can't see crossing fingers for illness for anyone -- do hope, though, that if Ward doesn't get a WC here, the authorities make it up to him in some way. Whatever the case, as Steven + others have pointed out, one can only hope that the LTA will learn from this that draconian decisions are as risky as seemingly overly generous ones.

Stuart Fraser wrote:

---

steven wrote:

---

It's always such a cop-out giving the remaining WCS to the next 3 DAs. Interesting too, because I know for sure that Tomic had his eye on one (it's been all over the Aussie press) and I believe at least one of the other two non-GB Queen's WCs might have been holding out hope too.

Nice to see that the AELTC has at least been decent enough to give the Bogster a doubles WC. The Count and I did our best to remind them of that possibility on Twitter yesterday, so we'll delude ourselves that that's what tipped the balance. LOL

Btw the URL has changed from wildcards_2010 to 2010_wildcards, i.e.:

http://aeltc2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/pdf/2010_wildcards.pdf

---

This is bordering on a farce compared to the other grand slams. I had a look at the wild cards given out in the last three slams and look how it compares:

2010 French Open: 6 French + 1 American + 1 Australian. (American & Australian wild cards given as part of a reciprocal agreement with US & Australian Opens).

2010 Australian Open: 5 Australians (one of them getting through the Australian Open WC Play-Offs) + 1 French + 1 American + 1 Kazakh (wild card is given to the top Asian player as tournament brands itself as the Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific).

2009 US Open: 6 Americans + 1 French + 1 American.

Look at the support these Slams give their own players. Also, the reciprocal agreements in place ensure that one of their country's players will receive an opportunity at the other slams.

This LTA rule of a player having to be ranked within the top 250 to be recommended is absolute nonsense. Couple this with Wimbledon's bizarre decision making where they just waste their three remaining wild cards on the next three direct acceptances and you have a laughable situation.

If it was me, this would be the wild card criteria for Wimbledon:

4 Brits (Alex Bogdanovic, Jamie Baker, James Ward & Dan Evans would have been my 2010 choices)
1 French
1 US
1 Australian - Get the reciprocal agreements in place and give our own players the chance to compete in the main draws of the other slams.
1 other - Leave a wild card open for the discretion of the tournament organisers. Could be useful for situations where a big name is not on the direct acceptance list, like in 2001 when three-time runner up Goran Ivanisevic got one. If there are no suitable candidates, then give it to another Brit.

Those who have been to Wimbledon in the past will know how much support the Brits get on the outside courts. With Andy Murray guaranteed to be on Centre Court & Court No.1, Jamie Baker will be the only British male singles player who Brits will have a chance to support on the other courts this year. Crazy or what?

---

Well said folk.

Does anyone know in the most recent Grand Slams, if any other Grand Slam countries have had MD WC ranking cut-offs for their players and / or how far down the WRs they have gone giving their own players MD WCs ?

 

Josh wrote:

---

Mina got a WC for the French this year and he is ranked in the 650s. Lost to Rafa in the 1st round.

---

Possibly not the best example as Mina was ranked world number 1 in the juniors earlier this year, won the Orange Bowl, and reached the final of Roland Garros juniors last year, as well as a semi final at the Aussie Open and US Open, so it would be hard to argue against him getting a wild card.

If we had a British player who had done that at juniors in the last year, then I'm sure they would get a wild card (as has happened on the women's side with Robson and Watson getting WC's despite not being inside the top 250)

 

^^^

I think the problem of looking at the Grand Slams to see how far down the ranking lists they went with the wild cards is that Australia, France and the USA probably all have 5 or 6 players ranked between the 110-250 range, plus an additional promising junior which means that they probably also have a cut off of around 250 for the wild cards, but that is down the amount of players ranked in that range equalling the number of wild cards rather than something decided by the tennis federation.

OEM's contribution to the debate, via a report on Bally's, Heather's & James' respective fortunes at Eastbourne today:

Ward's ranking will improve to a similar level, but unlike Watson he will not receive a wild card into Wimbledon. The All England Club decided to award only five wild cards to men, rather than the usual eight, and Ward preferred to chase ranking points at Eastbourne rather than enter the Wimbledon qualifying tournament.

With wild cards for British players becoming harder to come by, it is disappointing that Ward, the British No 5, will not be able to take his form on grass forward at Wimbledon. Jamie Baker, the world No 259, is the only British man to receive one.

Wimbledon said yesterday that the three outstanding wild-card slots had been given back to automatic entries from the ranking list.