British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

paulisi wrote:

---

The secret is to get as many directly into main draw and automatic qualifying to free up wildcards.

Jan, Billy, Jack PJ, Jacob are all potential DA if they can bump up their ranking
Then you have the likes of George, Ryan and others who are capable of getting into qualifying direct.

---

 That is the secret to get numbers and we certainly look like we should get quite a few Q DAs on top of our MD DAs and WCs. Probably more than I can ever recall - in days past being ranked high enough for a Q DA would see a GB player getting a MD WC.

But I must admit I don't fancy your list much at all. Time is surely far too limited, MD entry ranking date is 18/05 and Q date 25/05. Tbh some would need at least months to be potentially ranked high enough.

I'd be thinking along the lines of :

MD: 2 DAs ( Cam and Jack D ) and 6 WCs ( Jake, Jan, JPJ, Billy, Arthur and Toby ).

Q: Additional DAs ( including possible upgrades to MD WC if there is room ) - Jay, Liam, Harry, Dan ( though where he? ) and possibly Oliver and Felix. 

indiana wrote:

---

paulisi wrote:

---

The secret is to get as many directly into main draw and automatic qualifying to free up wildcards.

Jan, Billy, Jack PJ, Jacob are all potential DA if they can bump up their ranking
Then you have the likes of George, Ryan and others who are capable of getting into qualifying direct.

---

 That is the secret to get numbers and we certainly look like we should get quite a few Q DAs on top of our MD DAs and WCs. Probably more than I can ever recall - in days past being ranked high enough for a Q DA would see a GB player getting a MD WC.

But I must admit I don't fancy your list much at all. Time is surely far too limited, MD entry ranking date is 18/05 and Q date 25/05. Tbh some would need at least months to be potentially ranked high enough.

I'd be thinking along the lines of :

MD: 2 DAs ( Cam and Jack D ) and 6 WCs ( Jake, Jan, JPJ, Billy, Arthur and Toby ).

Q: Additional DAs ( including possible upgrades to MD WC if there is room ) - Jay, Liam, Harry, Dan ( though where he? ) and possibly Oliver and Felix. 

---

 Which leaves a long list of possibles behind them for QWC places and also the WC play offs. Mark Ceban gets a QWC, for the Junior title, I believe? 

It's actually looking problematic for Jay managing a qualifying DA ( I had been counting him in in my last post ).

As I just posted in the Week 18 Italy Challenger thread after his QF loss :

"Pity. Not a good looking result and not good for Jay's chances of being a Wimbledon Qualifying direct acceptance.

The issue is that he is due to drop 83 points ( from 2 events ) on 25/05 which will be the relevant ranking date for the Wimbledon Q entry list.

I reckon he may need to reach the final in the Tunis Challenger 75 next week. RU would see him on 253 points at 25/05 ( SF and he would just be on 231 points ). He will be in French Open Q in the week beginning 18/05 with any points from that not adding in until after the French Open.

No doubt Jay would get a Wimbledon Q WC if he needed one but that would then be one less WC left for other contenders."

I have only just spotted that both Dimitrov and Goffin have had to go through qualies for Roland Garros!

Goffin is a twice Wimbledon quarterfinalist, once French. He got a wildcard for RG qualies - surely he must be a candidate for at least a qualies wild card for Wimbledon

Dimitrov is a former 3 time slam semifinalist, Wimbledon included. Reached the last 16 of the last 3 Wimbledon's. Arguably (maybe not even arguably) would have beaten Sinner last year until he tore his pec at 2 sets up.

Dimitrov should probably be in the main draw WC conversation, I would say. and Bulgaria won the Eurovision Song Contest at the weekend - haha.

Seriously, Dimi for a main draw one and Goffin for a qualies one must be possibles.

Brendan F wrote:

---

If Dimitrov doesn't have a PR then it's his own fault he's as low ranked as he is. If he's good enough then he can work for it like everyone else. With so many of our own players in line this isn't a year to be handing them to peskies as a long service medal.

---

 Ooh. Well, Im not a big fan of the term pesky, as people know, so will let that pass. I guess you could argue that if our guys were good enough, they should be there as of right, why give them a hand up. 

Which is surely the point of a wildcard - to put someone in the draw which in some way boosts the event? Whether that be a home player or an up and comer, or a crowd favourite etc? I think Dimitrov falls into the crowd favourite as well as still being competitive category - like Goran all those years back, for example? 

Rightly or wrongly, it's a fact that every other slam uses wildcards as an opportunity to favour their own players. France are currently struggling to find enough decent players, but it isn't stopping them from continuing that policy. For decades we have been crying out to have enough players to justify pursuing the same policy ourselves, and now finally we have so, for now at least, we should be as hardline as the other slams in just promoting our own players,

-- Edited by Brendan F on Monday 18th of May 2026 12:39:29 PM