Two players at very different areas of their careers have been given Wimbledon wildcards. 18 year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov, who won the Wimbledon Junior Championships last year, and veteran German Tommy Haas are the two beneficiaries.
Shapovalov had advanced through Queen’s Qualifying and won his first round match against Kyle Edmund on Monday. He faces Tomas Berdych later today.
Shapovalov was involved in a controversial incident in the Davis Cup tie between his home nation Canada and Great Britain. He hit a ball that then caught the chair umpire in the eye resulting in an immediate default.
At the opposite end of the career spectrum is Tommy Haas. He has also been awarded a wildcard twenty years after he played in his first Wimbledon. Haas defeated good friend Roger Federer in a shock upset in Stuttgart last week, but was beaten by Australia’s Bernard Tomic in the first round of Halle.
The wildcards for Shapovalov and Hass means they both bypass qualifying and will feature in the main draw directly. If they had not been awarded wildcards, they would have been required to win three rounds of matches at Roehampton, an event that gets underway on Monday.
British players Brydan Klein, Cameron Norrie and James Ward have been given main draw wildcards, whilst Marcus Willis, who stunned the tennis world by qualifying and then reaching the second round, has been given a qualifying wildcard. Three more Men’s Singles wildcards have yet to be announced.
