Not saying what's necessarily right and wrong, but British players ( including on various occasions Andy ) have been as "guilty" as anyone of getting late WCs to events they could have got into on their ranking.

Anyway, giving WCs to well ranked players seems to me one of the better WC alternatives, so can't say I'll be getting too perturbed over these ones.

Given that it is the only Challenger on next week, it's in a very accessible country and it's on hard courts, it seems amazing to me that next week's Mouilleron-le-Captif Challenger in west-central France has 12 empty slots in the qualifying draw. Looks like there was a bit of an opportunity there if anyone felt like grabbing it.

Maybe the bits in bold made everyone assume it would be really strong and that's why hardly anyone turned up.

I haven't checked how strong the main draw is going to be.