Ali is playing at a decent level and upped it since moving to Florida.

Jamie Loeb is the best US College tennis has to offer and along with the way Katie Swan dispatched Carol Zhao last week I think giving wild cards to 15-16 year olds who are already playing at the level of the best Girls leaving college is pretty healthy in terms of generating some interest locally around futures tournaments. It is also consistent with the aim of the futures tour which is to give young players the opportunity to transition to the main tour.

Judy Murray has a pretty decent track record in terms of the talent she has brought through from Dunblame which strikes me as a well worth revisiting, I also like the family track record of athleticism as the daughter of a pro footballer Ali follows a line of pretty impressive Scottish tennis players with football in their blood. Murray A, Murray J and Baltacha E.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 23rd of March 2016 11:24:58 PM

paulisi wrote:

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wimdledont wrote:

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These unexplained wildcards...

First Freya, as I understood it, got a wildcard bought for her by the LTA, for a 25k tournament in Australia. That seemed fair enough, as the previous week she skipped a 75k to warm an LTA bench at the Fed Cup. Though this was the first I'd heard that wildcards to overseas tournaments could be bought...

So is Ali's WC here awarded to her because the USTA had no available suitable candidates? Or because the LTA bought it?

No offence to Ali, but I'd suggest that it would be better to invest LTA funds in staging 25ks in te UK, and getting more UK women competing for points and prizes; rather than a committee deciding that Ali deserves the only shot at it, as she's from Dunblane.

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 Be very careful what you put in your posts. If you read the ITF rulebook regarding wildcards, you are not allowed to offer financial reward for wildcards.

From my knowledge, wildcards can be applied for, but in general the organiser tends to offer out wildcards to those who they think are worthy or will enhance the competition.

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 Not sure where you are getting your information from Wimbledont but yes, you are making a serious allegation here.  The ITF rules Section IV Definitions, B Wildcards specifically states that Wildcards cannot be sold or bought:

'Players and tournaments may not offer and/or receive any compensation for receiving or awarding a wild card.'

Freya's I imagine was awarded because she explained her circumstances and is a young player rising fast up the rankings who was likely to make good use of the card.  As said above, Ali is based near the tournament and the tournament director probably reserves a WC for a good recommendation from his local academy.

I think then that I must have misunderstood the situation; and that both Freya's and Ali's wildcards were awarded by the respective tournament organisers on merit. I misunderstood; and certainly didn't intend to suggest that any illegal payment was made.

No, I'm not.

I was meaning in general, i.e. grand slam and ATP/WTA level. Which I was pretty sure about but now you mention it....

So you're quite right and I shouldn't have used 'reciprocal'.

But, as you say, federations certainly have an influence. And I should stop it there.

The doubles qualies event here included, Olivia Rogowska, Mel Oudin, Jarmila Wolfe, Marie Benoit and the South Africans, Michelle Sammons & Chanel Simmonds.
Something, maybe Miami related, obviously stopped them all entering in the normal time frame.
The end result, I suggest, might be the most competitive $25K doubles qualification field ever!