winning the title aged 37<\/a>, she successfully \u00adnavigated back-to-back matches on Sunday to make it into the main draw.<\/p>\n\u201cI was pretty sure to get a wildcard, or I was hoping to get a wildcard, because I did it [win] last year,\u201d she\u00a0said. \u201cIt was not five years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised when I got the message of [the tournament \u00addirector] Laura Robson saying all the wildcards would go to the \u00adBritish \u00adplayers, which I understand, of course, but as a champion, it\u2019s tough for me [to accept]. I\u00a0thought I deserved a\u00a0wildcard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to respect the player in general. It is something that should be normal. If you are champion of an event and you don\u2019t get in the year after, I think automatically this should be considered. It\u2019s something out of respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maria\u2019s victory provided a \u00adremarkable denouement to the return of women\u2019s tennis to Queen\u2019s for the first time in 52 years. Watched courtside by her two daughters, she embarked on a giantkilling run, defeating four top-20 opponents in a row to become the oldest WTA 500 champion. Incredibly, her \u00adtriumph followed a nine-match \u00adlosing streak heading into the tournament. Her \u00adpicture now hangs on the wall of an elite club that granted her \u00adhonorary lifetime membership after her\u00a0triumph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe response from everybody around was really huge when they knew I didn\u2019t get the wildcard,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of members here came to me and said: \u2018Really, we don\u2019t understand why you didn\u2019t get the\u00a0wildcard.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was super nice, from \u00admembers, from players and from journalists, all around the world I got a lot of positive feedback. I was \u00adsurprised about it and I was really happy that everybody said something to try to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maria sits 52nd in the world \u00adrankings, 34 places higher than last year, but not sufficient to earn direct entry to the tournament. This year\u2019s wildcards were granted to the \u00adBritish quartet Katie Boulter (world No\u00a073), Fran Jones (world No 98), \u00adHarriet Dart (world No 160), and Mika \u00adStojsavljevic (world No 261).<\/p>\n
An LTA spokesperson said: \u201cThe LTA owns and invests in staging these events for the benefit of the British\u00a0game as a whole \u2013 so fans can see world-class international\u00a0\u00adplayers from around the world, and\u00a0\u00adsupport our British \u00adplayers, but also so \u00adBritish\u00a0players are afforded the \u00adplaying opportunities to \u00adprogress\u00a0their careers and climb the rankings.<\/p>\n
Tatjana Maria celebrates with the trophy after her unlikely win at Queen\u2019s last year. Photograph: Shaun Brooks\/CameraSport<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen British success at these events, and breakthrough wins, so there is clear value in giving British players these development opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having come through her two qualifying matches, Maria will face the former world No 3 Maria Sakkari in the first round on Tuesday, hoping that \u00adSunday\u2019s gruelling exertions could play in her favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday was tough playing two matches in one day, especially on grass,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it gives you time on the grass, because players at the beginning have not so much practice time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for me to have the two matches in my bag to get the feeling \u00adbetter. I hope it\u2019s going to help for the next\u00a0matches.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tatjana Maria, the reigning Queen\u2019s Club women\u2019s champion, has revealed her shock at not \u00adreceiving a wildcard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-692218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}