Australia may have only five direct acceptances in the men\u2019s draw \u2013 Alex de Minaur, Alexei Popyrin, Adam Walton, Aleks Vukic and Tristan Schoolkate \u2013 which would be half the number of the 2025 tournament.<\/p>\n
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The official entry list is not out yet, so even Schoolkate, who was the world No.100 at the new cut-off time last month, may need some withdrawals, depending on how many players use protected rankings to enter.<\/p>\n
Jordan Thompson, Chris O\u2019Connell, Rinky Hijikata, James Duckworth and Thanasi Kokkinakis were all top-100 players and direct entrants at this time last year. Australia\u2019s sole new top-100 men\u2019s player since then is 24-year-old Schoolkate.<\/p>\n
The ATP changed the cut-off date for Australian Open entry from the usual six weeks before to the rankings immediately after the ATP Finals, which is why Duckworth required a wildcard.<\/p>\n
Tour veteran Duckworth has rallied to again reclaim a double-digit ranking, but was No.106 at the cut-off date. He received a wildcard as the best-performing men\u2019s player in the Australian Pro Tour\u2019s wildcard points race.<\/p>\n
Kokkinakis had pectoral reattachment surgery in February, and has not played since his five-set loss to British star Jack Draper at this year\u2019s Australian Open, while Thompson dealt with myriad injuries throughout the season.<\/p>\n
The Kokkinakis camp has not confirmed when he plans to return, but a tournament source told this masthead the expectation was the big-serving South Australian would miss this summer.<\/p>\n
Thompson, 31, retired mid-match at his past two events in October and his ranking has plummeted 82 spots from a career-best No.26 in November last year.<\/p>\n
Tiley and his team typically hand out five main-draw singles wildcards each to Australian men and women, with Duckworth securing the first of them.<\/p>\n
Assuming another goes to Kyrgios, the other three will probably go to Thompson (world No.108), Hijikata (114) and O\u2019Connell (115), meaning 33-year-old Bernard Tomic (186) will have to qualify to contest the main draw for the first time in five years.<\/p>\n
The sole Australian man younger than 24 in the world\u2019s top 200 is 191st-ranked James McCabe, 22. The only male compatriot younger than McCabe in the top 500 is 21-year-old Edward Winter, the world No.481.<\/p>\n
Cruz Hewitt, who turns 17 this month, appears to be the country\u2019s best men\u2019s prospect, but his junior career pales in comparison to the likes of de Minaur, Popyrin, Kyrgios and Kokkinakis, so it is still unclear whether he has the upside to be a prominent player in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the players who are just outside the top 100, we\u2019ve got lots just outside, so it goes back and forth ranked between 80 and 130, and I think that we have more than any other nation in that group,\u201d Tiley said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers are peaking between 25 and 30 now, so that\u2019s generally the way we\u2019re looking at it, but the team is working tirelessly on the regeneration of the younger players. It\u2019s not one of those things you can click your finger and expect an outcome. It takes 12 years minimum.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s a really good group of younger boys and younger girls who are coming through. It\u2019s going to take some time, but we\u2019re still ranked No.2 per capita, as far as number of players in the top 100, both men and women.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first women\u2019s wildcard went to 17-year-old rising star Emerson Jones. Priscilla Hon, Talia Gibson, Maddison Inglis, Taylah Preston and Olivia Gadecki are the likeliest contenders for the other four.<\/p>\n
Daria Saville is pregnant and will miss the 2026 Open, but said on Tuesday she would return to the tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia may have only five direct acceptances in the men\u2019s draw \u2013 Alex de Minaur, Alexei Popyrin, Adam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-322458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}