Obscene amounts of cash for reaching the QF's and beyond, and these are players who are either already earning, or will recoup, a packet through endorsements / sponsorships for getting so far in a Slam.
Money is the root of all evil is the saying, and professional tennis for the elite seems to be a real money spinner. It's hardly surprising that so few take so much out of the game, when the rest have to endure a punishing and expensive schedule of global travel in the pursuit of points in a ranking system that rewards the already established stars and limits player turnover for the benefit of TV audience.
Excuse me for correcting you, but the full quote, from the Bible, is the "love of money is the root of all evil"
Thanks for correcting me, miriam abc, I was unaware of the origins of that saying and had only ever heard an abridged version spoken. I should have done some research before misquoting it.
What happens if the wildcards get announced, Fran gets one but then someone withdraws from main draw and that all happens before qualifying starts? Do they get to give someone else the wildcard?
Yes. Fran would move into the main draw and her wildcard would be available for reallocation. If it was decided not to reallocate it, then the next alternate for the main draw would just move in.
That seems most likely, hopefully Fran will get in before then to give someone else a chance. Could the announcement be delayed to give Fran more time to make the MD if necessary?
The Wimbly wildcard playoffs, for women, states this:
Womens Wild Cards. 1 wild card from winning the Lexus British Tour Premier West Worthing 2 wild cards for the top 2 GB players on the ITF junior ranking list at 17 June having signed in (if either of the 2 highest ranked juniors have already won the Lexus Junior National Championships 18U Girls Singles 2026 & won a Qualifying wild card then the next highest ranked junior) 1 wild card for the top ranked NCAA player having signed in (subject to the player being in the NCAA top 100). If any of the above wild cards are not required or accepted the wild card will go back to the LTA Womens Performance Team 2 further discretionary wild cards from the LTA Performance Team *
Now, at the moment, our top two juniors are Hannah and Hollie (followed by Dani, then Mika, then Ophelia)
Assuming Hannah doesn't sign in, and Dani is the 18U winner, and Mika doesn't sign in, then is everyone expecting the two juniors to be:
I'm not as convinced as most that Alicia will get a MD WC. It's more 50/50 for me.
The qualifying options look underwhelming to me. They're mostly players stuck in the 400s with nothing suggesting they're potential top 250 players in the future. Given the closeness if I were the LTA, I'd be tempted to nominate few qWCs and let them fight it out in the play-offs with the 4 finalists getting the qWCs instead of the last 2.