The head of the Open 13 tournament has explained his decision to issue a wildcard to a player ranked outside of the top 900.
Jean-François Caujolle has been questioned about the decision to hand a pass into the ATP 250 event to Petros Tsitsipas, who is the brother of world No.5 Stefanos. Prior to the event, 20-year-old Tsitsipas had never played a main draw match on the ATP Tour. Although he did receive a wildcard into the qualifying draw of the Dubai Tennis Championships last year. The Greek is currently ranked 970th in the world and has earned just over $55,000 from playing singles so far in his career.
Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Caujolle implied that the wil card issued was part of a thank you to Stefanos for playing in the tournament. Stefanos is a two-time champion of the tournament but suffered a shock quarter-final loss to Pierre-Hugues Herbert this year.
“The wild card awarded to Petros is in thanks to the Tsitsipas family, who support the tournament. You should know that Stefanos’ guarantee (to play in the tournament) is twice less than what he could have claimed elsewhere,” journalist Eric Salliot quoted Caujolle as saying.
Tsitsipas lost 6-0, 6-2, to seventh seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the first round. He won 20 out of the 70 points that was played during the 46-minute match. Despite the comprehensive loss he was awarded €5,100 in prize money (working out as just under $7000).
Despite the questionable decision to award Tsitsipas a wildcard, neither the player or tournament has done anything wrong. The ATP rulebook states that ‘tournaments may not receive compensation and players may not offer compensation in exchange for the awarding of a wild card.’ Providing this condition is met, organisers can be fairly flexible as to who they give a wildcard to.
Another example of questionable wildcard decision is in Doha where Mubarak Shannan Zayid was handed a main draw pass. The Qatari, who has a ranking high of 1159, is yet to win a set in the tournament despite being granted a wild card in five separate years. He lost 6-4, 6-0, to Aslan Karatsev and exited the tournament with $11,270 in prize money.
The ATP states that the allocation of wildcard’s is based on the ‘sole discretion’ of each tournament.
