The US Open juniors had what is (to my mind) a good example of why WCs in juniors can be both useful and rather good fun. Two younger players did well in the national championships and were subsequently given a WC into the USO junior doubles tournament. They're both teens who are at regular schools and don't spend all their time going from tournament to tournament - indeed the one I checked had played three doubles tournaments all year. Their rankings, therefore, were very low (1313 for that one). But you can hardly argue, given that they reached the finals, that they weren't a good choice.

If you're a professional, you need to chase points and build your ranking. But I quite like the idea of WCs that mean you can be a young person with an "ordinary" life but still play on the big stage occasionally. Come to think of it, Jack Sock did the same ... stayed at home, spent four years demolishing opponents for his school's team, played a whopping four ITF tournaments, and then got a WC to the USO juniors, which he won.

All that said, there's still the inequity that favours players from countries that host tournaments (especially GS tournaments). I read recently a proposal that suggested a system for GS wild cards that would in effect use a quasi-Olympic format, reserving some of them for players from underrepresented countries. Now that sounds like an interesting thought ...

I remember Dodin got a wildcard for the US Open too at the expense of Johanna despite the tremendous form she'd shown which was of course vindicated in her great run.  So I wonder what it is about Dodin that they like so much, needless to say she'll have another one in the next slam too.

brendan wrote:

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I remember Dodin got a wildcard for the US Open too at the expense of Johanna despite the tremendous form she'd shown which was of course vindicated in her great run.  So I wonder what it is about Dodin that they like so much, needless to say she'll have another one in the next slam too.

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As people know - and my stance has still not changed on this - I would ban the awarding of wild cards at grand slam events completely for a number of reasons including the type of scenario you highlight. However, let's not forget that Johanna (and I'm mainly talking about pre 2015 here) has also benefitted from wild cards that she didn't really deserve or where someone more serving has lost out.

 

 

Well, the current mega controversy is the withdrawal of Constant Lestienne's wildcard......

The French have gone rather over the top and removed his wildcard because - suddenly now - they've found out the Constant bet 2.80 euros on a RG match in 2015

This seemingly breaches the anti-corruption rules and because of the 'zero tolerance' approach, bang goes his wildcard.

Now, it's true that Constant is 23 (22 last year) so not a kid. And should have known better. (I don't think it was his won match he bet on, although not sure). And no betting is no betting.

But really......

He bet on a SF, so it clearly wasn't his match. There was nothing really to "know" about any of the players that wasn't public knowledge. And he clearly wasn't going to influence the outcome. But it's the Tennis Integrity Unit which is investigating him and which notified the FFT that they were doing so. That places the FFT in an awkward position. They freely acknowledge in their release that this was a minor issue and they are therefore not banning him from playing during the investigation. But they have revoked his WC.

Given that a national federation is unlikely to be happy about giving a WC for a tournament to someone under investigation for something that happened at that tournament, the people who may have shown more judgement than mercy are the TIU, who presumably just informed the FFT of the investigation. They must have been aware of the likely consequences. And I agree: what he did breached the rules; the rules are there for a good reason; and any player who bets (even foolishly, rather than criminally) clearly needs to face consequences. But the consequences in this case, given the importance of a MDWC for a player's finances, seem disproportionate.

The whole thing is somewhat ironic as the FFT is under investigation for corruption, I think from the French authorities, in connection with ticket sales around Roland Garros.

If the FFT has known since December, this is the fact that has angered so many French people.

The Integrity unit have been looking into it. They specifically said that it was not serious enough for them to stop him playing.

So the FFT knew, knew the seriousness and knew for a while.

But they gave him a wildcard and, by so doing, Constant obviously was 'prevented' from entering the qualifiers. Willingly obviously.

But now they withdraw it (based on no new information that anyone can see).

SO he's lost his main draw chance and prize money (which was discretionary).

But he's also lost his qualifiers chance and guaranteed prize money (which was his 'by right').

Utterly unfathomable.

And, yes, even more so when you see that the FFT is under fire for spending 100,000 euros on the Noah's Islands jaunt.

And the President is being investigated for making personal gain from fiddling RG ticket sales. But is still in his role.

These are serious amounts of money, and serious offences.

Spectator wrote:

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To be quite honest, while the French tennis system seems admirable, the FFT as an institution seems exceptionally riven with discord and prone to arbitrary decisions. But that's a view from way outside.

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You're not wrong (and I know it from the inside)

Although i don't know how it compares to similar bodies elsewhere.

And the 'riven with dischord' is mainly due to the blazer brigade versus the new, non-blazer lot. Which might be good in some ways as  it means it's not ALL blazers any longer - unlike the impression I get (from the outside) of the LTA.

But definitely a HUGE amount of politics, and all the stuff that goes with that.

I think they come off looking incredibly bad in this situation though, as either incompetent or completely spineless.

Because either (a) they didn't know their a** from their elbow - i.e. the wildcard committee weren't told by the other federation bit that Constant was being investigated. Or (b) they knew, said it was fine, and then, at the first sign of any problems - i.e. someone mentioned it to them - they capitulated and rescinded it, landing Constant completely in the mire.