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Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Wimbledon wildcard - men

indiana · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Ok.... so that means that the potential prize pot of the tournament can go up

i.e. Wimbledon budgets on paying £66k to 64 people (all the losing players in R1)

BUT IF twenty players in R1 were last minute lucky losers, they would also have to pay 20 x £33k to all the on-site withdrawing R1 players (who'd competed recently)

(But the LL player only gets the £66k - which makes sense - as Indy says, they couldn't get more than a normal R1 player, and as I'd pondered, they couldn't get less than a FQR player)

Are they not paying out less in total?

Take one withdrawing player getting £33K rather than £66K, then a LL, who was originally going to get £41K, takes his place and gets £66K R1 money.

£33K less plus £25K more. Net net 8K less?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Um.... maybe it's me.....it's early

but if you normally play out £66k to the losing player

And now you pay out £66k to the losing player (the LL for the sake of argument) PLUS £33k to the withdrawing R1 player who should have played, isn't that more?

BUT - as I type the cogs are whirring slowly - you're saying that the £66k is to a player who now is not going to get the £41K i.e. I've always got 64 players who get £66k but I've got 20 players who I was going to pay out £41k to, and whilst they get more, their £66k, the 20 alternatives (the retiring ones) only get £33k

Hence, Wimbledon saves money .....

My brain needs coffee

but I'm with you

9vicman · Futures qualifying

Back to the subject of wild cards, why on earth do Wimbledon persist in not giving out the full quota of doubles wild cards where there are British teams that can be competitive? No other Slam would fail to do that.

pauldepstein · Junior player

9vicman wrote:
Back to the subject of wild cards, why on earth do Wimbledon persist in not giving out the full quota of doubles wild cards where there are British teams that can be competitive? No other Slam would fail to do that.

I can only guess... Apparently this year, Wimbledon is giving far fewer wildcards to non-Brits than is the norm and also considerably fewer than the other Slams have given to other nationals. The only non-Brit wildcard I can think of is Petra Kvitova. There is already controversy about this so making the doubles wildcards another totally-Brit affair might make it worse. Of course that doesn't answer the question of why the wildcards aren't used for non-Brit pairs ...

Blue_Belle · County player

Where's the controversy about Petra? She is a 2 time former champion, pretty much universally liked and she is retiring in a few months

indiana · Tennis legend

Blue_Belle wrote:
Where's the controversy about Petra? She is a 2 time former champion, pretty much universally liked and she is retiring in a few months

I took it that the controversy Paul alluded to was so many of the Brits getting WCs and not that Petra got a WC

Actually I wasn't aware of such controversy, well at least beyond this forum Has it been a bit of an issue elsewhere?

With Wimbledon being so Brit focused this year, it will end up with less non home WCs than the other Slams but that will be very largely due to the swap WCs agreements the other Slams have with each other. They also pretty much give every then available WC to their home players. Personally, I am not convinced that that is a compelling argument that we should and there is something to be said for having a few more non British WCs in what the AELTC would no doubt consider the greatest Slam, rather than just follow the herd. While yes still the big majority to Brits.

9vicman · Futures qualifying

I think Wimbledon giving to a home player is better than the Australian Open giving to Chloe Paquet. If any country doesn't need a reciprocal arrangement it's the Grand Slam nations.

The Australian Open has the Asia-Pacific wild card play-off, but then Zhang Shuai won this year's women's event which was hardly offering a new opportunity. The men's winner was Kasidit Samrej, a Thai ranked below 400, and he took Medvedev to 5 sets, which felt more satisfying.

Would be disappointed if the reason not to give all doubles wild cards to Brits was a perceived clean sweep. Most media/fans wouldn't care or even notice, and you could argue more competitive.

But gone are the days when nearly all the Brits were wild cards, so even when most lose, you'll still have plenty of players to focus on. Unless they all lose too...!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

pauldepstein wrote:
9vicman wrote:
Back to the subject of wild cards, why on earth do Wimbledon persist in not giving out the full quota of doubles wild cards where there are British teams that can be competitive? No other Slam would fail to do that.
I can only guess... Apparently this year, Wimbledon is giving far fewer wildcards to non-Brits than is the norm and also considerably fewer than the other Slams have given to other nationals. The only non-Brit wildcard I can think of is Petra Kvitova. There is already controversy about this so making the doubles wildcards another totally-Brit affair might make it worse. Of course that doesn't answer the question of why the wildcards aren't used for non-Brit pairs ...

Controversy?

The only reason the other slams give foreign players wildcards is because they're committed to do so under the reciprocal agreements

There's no foreign player in the RG wildcard list, for instance, who's there because of merit

Look at the list - they explain clearly the reason for the wildcards

https://www.rolandgarros.com/en-us/article/2025-wildcards-men-women-singles-qualifying-rounds

Now a reciprocal one means you obviously get it back the other side

So, net net, the home country gets just as many wildards

i.e. France has 100% domestic players for its wildcards - it has 8 MD French wildcards - it just plays a couple at foreign Grand Slams - but it's still 8 French wildcards i.e. 100% unlike the UK who at least gave one to a foreign player