No. I don't think there should be qualifying wild cards as well. As you say Slams can stand up by their own without them.

Wild cards are in principle unfair. Grand Slams are the pinnacle of the professional game and a true test of ability over 5 sets. Really extrapolating Indys argument to be fair we should give up Wimbledon and hold the second European slam on clay in Spain. 

However, there are many inequalities in tennisand we tend to fixate on the less important ones (So perhaps it's better to raise an inverted churchillian salute to total equality and keep Wimbledon) The UK just doesn't have the weather for Tennis! Perhaps we should have a sunshine quota. It's bl**dy expensive and for the most part only for the affluent. The wages throughout the game are unequally distributed with almost all the earnings shared amongst the top 100 players of either sex. Some elite players use performance enhancing drugs and retain the sponsorship of sports manufactures who sponsor youth tennis primarily to indoctrinate and sell their goods to children and maintain that brand loyalty into adult hood. Some tennis wear (sports wear) manufactures use children and or sweatshops in the developing world to manufacture goods sold to the affluent in the west. College tennis is the ultimate disenfranchisement of for most part socio-economically deprived superior athletes generating massive revenues for their athletic departments playing as amateurs in Football and Basketball college games broadcast across the nation, the revenue generally being used to fund niche sports and relatively wealthy poorer quality athletes playing in front of a comparative audience of one man and his dog. In proportion to the degree of inequality we should discuss these more and wild cards less. But in time honoured tradition lets just go there......Again. 

Wild cards in Slams increase the participation levels of players from the host nations, increasing local press coverage, profile and interest. Success inspires young players and motivates at a number of levels. Without wild cards we would have had one male player in the men's game and only two, often less, in the women's to follow at slams for the last decade. Andy's next game is the first time he will have played another Brit on the main tour for a decade and although I embrace Aljiaz and his Britishness he is not a product of British tennis. Wild cards within the domestic game redistribute wealth and increase the profile of British players outside the top 100, they expose young players early yo the senior grand slam environment.

If used appropriately wildcards are a positive force for British tennis, my stance has hardened a bit in that I think the criteria for awarding them should be tougher ie players outside the top 200 should definitely not be considered for MD wild cards unless they have a track record of success on grass and are in excellent form or an immensely talent youngster being fast tracked although they should all have played a year in qualifying first. I would give a maximum of 4.

Qualifying wild cards are fine, those that go to watch are interested in the players playing and the players need the money to keep playing and it is the best value day out in British sport, See you there!

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 15th of June 2016 04:24:41 AM

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 15th of June 2016 04:26:52 AM

Tennis is a travelling circus. The ATP & WTA essentially have a couple of hundred international sportsmen that they drag around the world to play the same matches time and again for the purposes of extracting money from the paying public and sponsors. Quite a few countries have surrendered their tournaments to the circus, including some National events.

The Grand Slams were different, as the British, French, US and Australians haven't quite surrendered their sovereignty.

Wimbledon is the British Open, as I understand it, and as such it is for British players to contest their National championship. Of course, to increase the quality of play and as a sop to the upstart foreigners it has been decided to invite a few (around 110) foreigners into the 128 person draw and another few (again around 110) into the 128 person qualification draw. Thus the invited foreigners (chosen by their world rankings, perhaps) are the wild cards, and the handful of Brits (whatever their ranking) are actually in the draw by right.

-- or maybe not.

Personally I love WCs. After all, without them, what would we have to argue about here on the forum.

Oakland - You wrote "although I embrace Aljiaz and his Britishness he is not a product of British tennis". If I am not mistaken, he has trained, played and lived in the UK since the age of 17 (he is now 26), so whilst I accept that he is not WHOLLY a product of British Tennis, I think it's fair to say that British tennis has played a large part in his development.

Bob, Aljaz has almost all his success on clay, with all but 2 or 3 of his 20 odd challenger finals on the surface. I would argue he honed the vast majority of his tennis skills battling his twin brother in Slovenia, quite handy to have another elite junior on tap 24/7.

He played almost all his futures and challenger tennis in and around the countries that formed Yugoslavia and those almost adjacent ie Italy and Austria with the odd trip to Turkey and Eygpt but didn't really compete in the UK until slightly older than the age Kyle is now.

Quite sensibly he has used the resources available to him in the UK to build on this but I think above and beyond that to suggest British tennis did more than inherit a very focused young man with a clear plan as to how to optimise his career development would be conning ourselves.

Although unlike me he was not a product of the maternity unit at the QE2 and most likely didn't touch a shredded wheat until he was 18 I think he enjoys being part of the British tennis set up and comes across as being a great role model (ie can't find any negative press at all) and is likely to give back more to British tennis in the long run than he has taken.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 15th of June 2016 09:31:17 PM

Marcus has won through qualifying he is not a (WC) he would be a (Q) and indeed he (Q) for his (QWC).

Not necessarily the right place to post this, but I was surprised to see Sam Smith on breakfast television saying she didn't know where the Wimbledon WC playoffs took place.  I would have thought she would have been more interested in British tennis.