However, the German missed out on a wildcard after all four were awarded to British players and instead she had to win two matches on Sunday to qualify, which delighted her daughters Charlotte and Cecilia.<\/p>\n
“I think with all the respect of what I did last year, I was pretty sure to get a wildcard or I was hoping to get a wildcard,” Maria said.<\/p>\n
“It was not, like, five years ago, it was last year and especially this tournament and to come back like a champion, I hoped and I thought I would get a wildcard.<\/p>\n
“I was surprised when I got the message of (tournament director) Laura Robson saying all the wildcards would go to the British players, which I understand of course but you know as a champion, it’s tough for me (to accept).<\/p>\n
“Of course I am in the tournament, I won yesterday the two matches but it is only the fact I am a champion and with the respect, for me I thought I deserved a wildcard.<\/p>\n
“Yesterday I wanted to win also for my girls to stay as long as possible because they really love to be here and they love the tournament.<\/p>\n
“The response from everybody around was really huge when they knew I didn’t get the wildcard and even a lot of members here. They came to me and said, ‘really we don’t understand why you didn’t get the wildcard’, so it was super nice.”<\/p>\n
![\"Katie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/skysports-katie-boulter-tennis_7268620.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Katie Boulter was amongst the Brits who received a wild card for the tournament<\/p>\n
British quartet Katie Boulter, Fran Jones, Harriet Dart and teenager Mika Stojsavljevic received wildcards from Robson and the Lawn Tennis Association.<\/p>\n
“The LTA owns and invests in staging these events for the benefit of the British game as a whole – so fans can see world-class international players from around the world and support our British players,” an LTA spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“We have seen British success at these events and breakthrough wins, so there is clear value in giving British players these development opportunities.”<\/p>\n
Maria does believe a rethink is required if a similar situation occurs, and men’s champion Feliciano Lopez earned a wildcard in 2019.<\/p>\n
“It is something that should be normal. If you are champion of an event and you don’t get in the year after, I think automatically this (wildcard) should be considered. It’s something out of respect,” Maria said.<\/p>\n
Watch the ATP and WTA Tours, live on Sky Sports or stream with NOW<\/a> and the Sky Sports app<\/a>, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending champion Tatjana Maria was surprised not to receive a wildcard for this year’s HSBC Championships but has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-259633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259633","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=259633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}