by It was already a record wimbledon for British tennis. 23 British players appear in the singles Draws, the highest amount since 1984.
Only 15 British – eight in the men and seven in women -Singles – do not have their tennis to thank for their appearance in the All England Club. Instead, it is your nationality that has secured a place for you.
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This should not disparage these 15 game card receivers: they are committed, hardworking, hardworking and extremely talented players after almost every measure. The same applies to the hundreds of players all over the world who are classified higher than those who have received wild cards but are not British. In fact, Stan Wawrinka, a three-time former Grand Sam winner, who desperately longed for another appearance at Wimbledon, is higher than all eight players to maintain game cards in the men’s draw.
Achieving a Grand Slam is a remarkable performance. Anyone who is the 128th best player in football, cricket or rugby would be a global star. However, tennis only allows 128 single players in his marquee events.
Eight of these spots are not determined by the performance on the square. Instead, in the case of Wimbledon, they are decided by the moods of the All England Lawn Tennis Club Committee, which gives the wild cards.
Wimbledon has the wildcard system for creating one of the greatest stories in the history of the championships. In 2001, three years after the achievement and loss of his third Wimbledon final, Goran Ivanisevic had dropped to 125th in the world. He wrote to the All England Club and asked a wild card. On the third Monday of the 2001 tournament, Ivanisevic carried a surcharge on the tee, got Pat Rafter’s return on the net and then sank to his knees and celebrated the trophy, which he should think of. In 1986 Pat Cash reached the quarter -finals as a Wild Card; In 2008 Zheng Jie, whose ranking had also fallen due to an injury, reached the semi -finals as a Wild Card.
However, these touching stories are emphatic. Alex Bogdanovic is a better illustration of how the system works more often. From 2002 to 2009, Bogdanovic received a wild card in Wimbledon’s main gel for eight years. He was removed every time in the first round and only won three sets in the eight games.
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These wild cards awarded get a wonderful opportunity to enliven your career. Even for players who lose in the first round, game cards can be transformative. Each loser in the first round at Wimbledon receives £ 66,000, similar to many professionals who wiped out it for a year at low-profile Challenger tour events.
When Barcelona ex-President Josep Bartomeu tried to automatically qualify the CHAMPION League of football, he described the “Wild Cards” concept. It was an insignificant term for an idea that was decided to qualify in contradiction to the players themselves and was widespread. And yet the concept of Grand Slam places in the committee rooms, not in front of the tennis court, is accepted.
Mingge XU is part of a cohort talented British teen tennis player – PA/Mike Egerton
Wimbledon is only the most extreme example of how Grand Slams local players give an unfair advantage. The other three majors have all mutual arrangements and give the other two slam nations one of their eight wildcard slots. For example, an American and an Australian player received wild cards both in the drawings of men and women at the French Open last month: horse trade for the advantage of these three nations.
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For the countries in which Grand Slams houses the system, you may be a racket. Last year, the slams awarded a total of 64 game cards in their individual competitions. Only nine of them went to players from outside of Australia, France, Great Britain and the United States. The wildcard system then effectively immortalized geographical inequalities in tennis and serves as an additional obstacle for players from Africa, Asia and South America to overcome them. At least other European players have a staple for large ATP events in their own countries, where they can get wild cards themselves.
Only last month Lois Boisson reached the semi -finals in Roland Garros after receiving a wild card. But while Boisson announced itself so exciting in Paris, she could have done so after the qualification tournament – just like Emma Raducanu on the way to winning the 2021 US Open.
Lois Boisson reached this year’s French Open final as Wild Card – Getty Images/Robert Prange
While game cards are designed so that they have more domestic interest in Grand Slams, they have a less tasty effect: lowering the total game standard and making more one -sided games.
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Ivan Ljubicic, the high -performance director of the French tennis team, recently recognized this truth. “We have a lot of defeats,” he said about France’s contingent of game cards at Roland Garros. “They invited people who don’t have the ranking, so they don’t have the level to play in the tournament, and sometimes it doesn’t work.”
As a Croatian, Ljubicic was not used to obtaining wild cards. “It is the other way around here,” said Ljubicic in France. “If you don’t get a wild card, there is a turmoil.”
Overall, game cards were eliminated and rely solely on protected ranking lists to help players who suffered injuries. A more realistic option would be for reform, not the revolution. Each slam could still reserve three places for local players and choose the local players who win the most likely games in the championship to arouse interest.
At the same time, Grand Slams could also grow wild cards worldwide. Each slam could show a player from Africa, Asia and South America to a game card to a player who cannot organize Grand slams. In fact, the Australian Open already reserves a wild card for players from the Asia-Pacific region.
That would remain two game cards. The organizers of the tournament can use them at their own discretion – maybe you choose an aging former champion, as Wimbledon did with Venus Williams in 2023 or last year with Angelique Kerber or an early tire of teenagers. Grand Slams could even take on a radical idea: to reduce the number of game cards and open additional positions for qualifications, regardless of the color of your passport.
