I know I risk banging on the same drum as my last post, but the idea of wildcards is to allow 4 categories of players to play - firstly to give household names and crowd favourites special dispensation to play (such as Venus Williams), secondly those with major extenuating circumstances (Svitolina) thirdly the best home players who lack the ranking to make the tournament and 4thly the winners of Surbiton and Ilkley.

The 4th category of wildcard is to promote home tournaments - Ilkley and Surbiton, but I feel this 4th category really isn't necessary. All pre-Wimbledon tournaments have home interest, as once a year the British public gradually wakes up to the fact that it is tennis season again. Would those tournaments be blighted by not giving out wildcards, well maybe a little, but you have the definite situation that one very deserving Brit will therefore miss out this year, and on other years, deserving Brits have missed out because of this system. It feels to me that this situation puts the committee that decides in a bit of straitjacket, as otherwise, all 5 Brits would get the nod, and if Fran Jones had been fit, I think there would have been a very good case for giving her one too, and of course if Emma had been fit and needing a wildcard, she would have definitely got one too, which actually for me means there are 7 Brits who deserved wildcards this year, and from the point of view of purely wildcards, the organisers have a simpler decision given that Emma and Fran are not in the picture.

I would also like to add that when the Wimbledon draw comes out, if Wickmayer draws one of the least crowd pulling players (basically most players outside the top 32), then she will almost certainly be scheduled on one of the park bench courts, where probably no-one will make a special trip to see her ( other than her coach and parents possibly) and those around court will be entirely composed of those who have just wandered by and wanted somewhere to sit. I know this because my obscure tastes of the non-Brits I most like to follow (think Arantxa Rus, Denisa Chladkova and Yayuk Basuki) means I am often on these courts and am aware that I am the only one who has truly chosen to watch a match on this court, rather than haphazardly ending up there. Does any of this matter - well if kind of does; if the wildcards are mostly meant to boost spectator interest and help British tennis, it feels a bit sad when you see a wildcard playing in front of almost no spectators, and that the system has kind of gone wrong.

Another thing that has come up in these pages is the criteria for giving wildcards. Journalists often ask the question about how and why the wildcards have been given to certain players, and although my days of journalism are long gone, I can assure everyone on here, that all those connected to the decision making give the very simple answer that they award the wildcards to whoever they want to and whoever deserves it - that said, it has pretty definitely been agreed with the organisers of the Ilkley and Surbiton that their winners will get one - every year the winners of those tournaments do get the wildcards (if the winners of these tournaments' ranking means they need it), and Katie Swan's runners up speech emphasises that point.

If Venus has asked for one, she will certainly get it, and it looks as if Svitolina has been told verbally that she has one (otherwise she would have used her PR to enter), so it definitely means a touch choice. Katie B had a run to the 3rd round last year and Katie S qualified, so it would seem unlikely that they won't get one, Heather has been one of our best players for years and also did well last year, plus she normally does well on grass and Jodie has just missed the cut off - so I think the unlucky lady to miss out may be Harriet unless she at least makes the final at Nottingham, but if so, I feel it is the system that is flawed, rather than her being unlucky. If Harriet does miss out, it will be time to change the system. The only other possibility would be to make Svitolina do qualifying, but I just can't see it - if a phone call has happened, then any agreement will be honoured.