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)
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