{"id":251967,"date":"2026-06-02T08:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T08:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251967\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T08:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T08:10:22","slug":"lta-under-fire-for-refusing-to-grant-queens-champion-a-wild-card-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251967\/","title":{"rendered":"LTA under fire for refusing to grant Queen\u2019s champion a wild card"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lawn Tennis Association is facing criticism after refusing to grant a wild card into Queen\u2019s to last year\u2019s champion<\/a>, Germany\u2019s Tatjana Maria.<\/p>\n

Maria was a surprising and hugely popular winner<\/a> because of the fact she was 37 and a mother of two daughters \u2013 both of whom were courtside for her victory.<\/p>\n

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Maria\u2019s team are shocked she has been denied a wild card, with her husband and coach, Charles-\u00c9douard Maria, saying it let down the principle of English \u201cfair play\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad,\u201d Charles-\u00c9douard told Telegraph Sport. \u201cAfter all the advertising they did for the tennis women, all the headlines last year about \u2018The Queen of Queen\u2019s\u2019, the reality is that they are not helping us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision \u2013 which was communicated to Maria\u2019s camp last week \u2013 is part of the LTA\u2019s recent policy to hold back wild cards for British players only.<\/p>\n

\"Tatjana<\/p>\n

Maria came through qualifying to win at Queen\u2019s last year – Neil Hall\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Yet Charles-\u00c9douard pointed out that \u201cit happened in the past. When Feliciano L\u00f3pez won Queen\u2019s, he got a wild card. And this year Serena Williams is getting a wild card in doubles\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverybody on tour, and the coaches, and even people from England, are shocked that they don\u2019t give a wild card. I understand that the priority is for the English girls, but when something happened like last year, you want your defending champion in the draw. It\u2019s such a shame, especially coming from the English people: normally they are supposed to be really fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

To clarify the comparison with L\u00f3pez, he won the men\u2019s event at Queen\u2019s in 2017, and was then granted a wild card into both singles and doubles two years later, even though his ranking had dropped below the cut-off point for direct entry.<\/p>\n

To everybody\u2019s surprise, L\u00f3pez went on to win both events at the age of 37, earning the bigger headlines for partnering Andy Murray \u2013 then on the comeback road after a hip resurfacing operation \u2013 to the doubles title.<\/p>\n

\"Feliciano<\/p>\n

Feliciano Lopez and Andy Murray (right) with the Queen\u2019s men\u2019s doubles trophy in 2019 – Alex Morton\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Maria\u2019s victory last year felt equally unexpected, as she was watched by not only her husband but also her two daughters: 11-year-old Charlotte, who is planning to follow her into professional tennis in a couple of years\u2019 time, and four-year-old Cecilia.<\/p>\n

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Maria delivered an extraordinary campaign as she fought through qualifying, using her slice-heavy game to defeat Amanda Anisimova in the final, and thus becoming the first woman to triumph at Queen\u2019s Club \u2013 where the WTA had not staged an event since 1973 \u2013 since Russia\u2019s Olga Morozova 52 years earlier.<\/p>\n

Maria\u2019s ranking now stands at No 54 in the world, 32 places higher than at the same stage of last year, but this is still not high enough to earn direct entry to the 500-point WTA event at Queen\u2019s \u2013 which goes under the official title of the HSBC Championships.<\/p>\n

\"Tatjana<\/p>\n

The German was watched by her husband Charles-Edouard and their two daughters during her triumphant Queen\u2019s final display – Annabel Lee-Ellis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Having failed to anticipate the LTA\u2019s refusal, Maria entered the second-tier Lexus Birmingham Open, which starts this week, but she now finds herself in a quandary. Should she reach the quarter-finals in Birmingham, she will be unable to travel to Queen\u2019s Club for the qualifying event at the end of this week. And if she cannot defend her title, her ranking will automatically plunge outside the world\u2019s top 100.<\/p>\n

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The HSBC Championships will feature 28 players. Eighteen of these have earned their places via ranking alone, while six more will go through qualifying. The remainder are beneficiaries of four wild cards presented at the discretion of tournament organisers.<\/p>\n

Emma Raducanu \u2013 who made a late decision not to play in Birmingham next week despite having previously intimated that she was looking for a wild card into that event \u2013 is the only British woman with a high enough ranking to play at Queen\u2019s on her own merit.<\/p>\n

Any other Britons \u2013 who would presumably include Katie Boulter, Fran Jones and Harriet Dart \u2013 would have to either come through qualifying (for those whose rankings are high enough) or hope for a wild card from the LTA.<\/p>\n

Wild cards can often throw up controversy, as there are various different ways to decide who deserves to bypass the meritocracy of direct entry. Famous names \u2013 such as Serena Williams<\/a> \u2013 are generally seen to enhance the commercial prospects of an event, while former champions are sometimes favoured, and national interest can also come into play.<\/p>\n

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In a statement, the LTA said: \u201cNo final decision has been made on the wild cards yet, but our approach is to prioritise British or WTA top-10 players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lawn Tennis Association is facing criticism after refusing to grant a wild card into Queen\u2019s to last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[98341,98340,98343,97521,9,24,63,122,124,123,82657,98338,98339,98342],"class_list":["post-251967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-charles-edouard","tag-charles-edouard-maria","tag-feliciano-lopez","tag-lta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-serena-williams","tag-tatjana-maria","tag-wild-card","tag-wild-cards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}