British Tennis Forum

paulisi wrote:

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Starting a new thread - discussion from the addict on different thread.

Feel free to respond with your thoughts.

 

Posts: 25092 Date: 2h ago

Permalink Reply Quote  More  I was looking at the Wimbly wild card situation earlier this week to get some idea who is in the running. Any names below are in ranking order. At a stretch I see 6 MD WC's - Fran, Harriet, Heather, Jodie, plus Lily and Marni who are both a bit low i the rankings. After that I see 26 pther players in contention for a maximum of 8 QWC's and 16 playoff places (I appreciate that there aren't 8 QWC's available). The question is who would be in each group, eg Hannah, Hep, Mika, Brooke and others. Going to be a tricky one ( and probably needs a thread of its own)

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 The six named are the 6 Brits for me who I think will get the slots. There could be an extra one for one of the youngsters if they do anything special in the next few weeks. Fran could of course be in there by right, if she qualifies for the French and comes through a round. 

I can see a lot of arguments why certain players should not get one - Harriet is very off form (but her ranking is high), Jodie is struggling (but her ranking is reasonably high) and Lily and Marni are of the rankings where a slot is not automatic, but even given these reservations, I think those will be the six.

I will be in Australia for a month (just back in time for the start of Wimbledon), so will be relying on this website for updates and will follow the discussions with great interest, though I think the computer I take out there will not let me contribute as normal. Anyway I keep my fingers crossed that the committee gives lots of wildcards to Brits - it did do last year and I think nothing will change. I am less bothered about the qualifying wildcards, as it is always a near impossible task for any lesser player to qualify, but I do hope that if Katie Swan starts playing again, that she is either given a qualifying wildcard or at least makes it into the wildcard play offs. She is the one player, who if given a qualifying wildcard, has a reasonable chance  to actually make it through, as she has done previously.

Anyway I know there are a range of opinions - some dislike the free leg up that Brits get at this time of year, but I feel it is important that Wimbledon attempts to help British tennis, as the French, US and Australians do - and so would any other country if they had a Grand Slam event.

Coup Droit wrote:

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I don't think Fran can be there as of right, Andy - it's too late

The entry list is closed now

www.wimbledon.com/pdf/update/referees/2025/LS_Entries.pdf

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 Oh that's a shame, but she is at least a nailed on cert for a wildcard into Wimbledon. Her form is brilliant, and although I don't always post when she wins, I am truly overjoyed to see her performing so well and she seems to be improving year on year. I look forward to her breaking into the top 100, as her next step.

I think this thread will run and run, but I wonder if we should give qualifying wild cards to our more senior players who don't have the ranking to qualify for the main draw but lets face it gave had far more opportunities over the years. Maybe we should be more like the French and Aussies and offer a main draw wildcard to a junior or two based on grass court form? Understand that would be contentious and may be too left field for the old guard running British tennis.

Var wrote:

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I think this thread will run and run, but I wonder if we should give qualifying wild cards to our more senior players who don't have the ranking to qualify for the main draw but lets face it gave had far more opportunities over the years. Maybe we should be more like the French and Aussies and offer a main draw wildcard to a junior or two based on grass court form? Understand that would be contentious and may be too left field for the old guard running British tennis.

-- Edited by Var on Wednesday 21st of May 2025 05:11:14 PM

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 The French haven't given any main draw WCs to juniors - mainly because there were no candidates

But they have given FOUR quali wildcards to young juniors, (15 and 16 year-olds), with very lowly WTA rankings (two outside the top-1000, one only just inside, and one ata reasonably 620 or so) and pretty low rankings in juniors too - all outside the top-50

There was some griping about it but, actually, they've had one win, one very good performance loss in three sets, and the other two were pretty competitive and most certainly didn't disgrace themselves either 

But the LTA/AELTC normally is nowhere near as brave / foolish - they stick to a line they can justify easily on paper, scared of being accused of favourtism - not easy to get the balance right