Wildcards for the Australian Open: Smith and Rodionova win the play-off, Andy Murray hopes
The two Australians John-Patrick Smith and Arina Rodionova won the Australian Open Play-offs and secured a wildcard for the main draw. Andy Murray , however, still has to hope for the grace of the organizers.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Dec 17, 2019, 05:54 pm
The world ranking-311. Smith beat Max Purcell 6: 3, 4: 6 and 6: 1 in the endgame and finally got his ticket into the main field after having failed twice in the playoffs final in the past. "Everyone said: All good things come in threes. I tried to ignore that. But it went well today, so it was really the third time," he said afterwards .
In the women's game, Arina Rodionova won 6: 4 and 7: 5 in the final against Storm Sanders - she had also been to the final several times before, but lost to Casey Dellacqua (2013), Daria Gavrilova (2014) and Maddison Inglis. On her 30th birthday, however, it was time for Rodionova. "I couldn't have asked for a nicer gift," said number 205 in the WTA ranking . In contrast to Smith, who was only once in the main field of Melbourne (2013), it is the fourth time for Rodionova after 2011, 2015 and 2017. However, they never made it into the second round.
Wildcards now include CoCo Vandeweghe (via the US partnership), Na-Lae Han (via the Asia-Pacific play-offs) and Rodionova for women, as well as Marcos Giron, Tatsuma Ito and Smith for men. The French partnership is still pending, as are four "independent" wild cards that the tournament can freely assign.
Andy Murray: Wildcard or Qualification?
This is exactly what Andy Murray will speculate on. The Scot operated on his hip is currently ranked 125th in the ATP ranking - this was not enough for him to qualify directly . Murray was also not able to take part in his Protected Ranking; he was only entitled to this once in Grand Slam tournaments and had already used it in the previous year.
Murray should, as of now, qualify. However, this should remain a theoretical scenario: As a five-time finalist at the Australian Open, the Australian tennis association should probably give the 32-year-old a wild card ...