Professional Tennis
In professional tennis tournaments, a wild card refers to a tournament entry awarded to a player at the discretion of the organizers. All ATP and WTA tournaments have a few spots set aside for wild cards in both the main draw, and the qualifying draw, for players who otherwise would not have made either of these draws with their professional ranking. They are usually awarded to players from the home and/or sponsoring country (sometimes after a tournament where the winner is awarded the wild card), promising young players, players that are likely to draw a large crowd, have won the tournament earlier or players who were once ranked higher and are attempting a comeback. Some Grand Slam tournaments swap wild cards, like Australian Open, French Open and US Open.
Read more about this topic: Wild Card (sports)
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or tennis:
“Smoking ... is downright dangerous. Most people who smoke will eventually contract a fatal disease and die. But they don’t brag about it, do they? Most people who ski, play professional football or drive race cars, will not die—at least not in the act—and yet they are the ones with the glamorous images, the expensive equipment and the mythic proportions. Why this should be I cannot say, unless it is simply that the average American does not know a daredevil when he sees one.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“[My one tennis book] was very, very old. It had a picture of Bill Tilden. I looked at the picture and that was how I learned to hold the racket.”
—Maria Bueno (b. 1939)