But I can’t help but wonder: what, exactly, makes an ideal wild-card recipient? While both Murray and Verdasco are coming back from lengthy injury lay-offs, Murray can claim former champ status at the Caja Magica, which could explain his inclusion. Without looking too far, the tournament in Rome the week after Madrid has just announced its first five wild cards, and all of them are for Italian players.”ĭK: Verdasco’s manifesto has unsurprisingly attracted plenty of attention, among them fellow Spaniard Paula Badosa, who received qualifying and main-draw wild cards for this event early in her career and credits them to her eventual success.ĭragged into the debate via snitch-tag, Murray entered the fray to clarify he would be happy to play Madrid with or without a wild card. We understand that some are given at their own discretion, but not that all of them should put their commercial interests ahead of Spanish sport, and fall completely out of step from the pattern of the previous years…If we look at any other tournament of the same category, there is much greater support that’s being shown to those local tennis players. We don’t understand how the promotional agency and the tournament owners have felt that these were reasonable criteria for awarding these wild cards.
Here’s part of that statement, translated into ingles:
SL: He and a few other Spanish players released a pretty strongly-worded statement against what they viewed as the Madrid tournament’s “surprising” and “frustrating” decision to award only one of their nine main-draw wild cards to a Spanish player. 1s Andy Murray and Naomi Osaka-the two-time Madrid quarterfinalist went deep on a nota that was, in own words, quite importante. After initially noting his displeasure alongside the official list of wild card entrants-which did feature the likes of former No. 7 had not been awarded a wild card into either main draw or qualifying action.
As popcorn matches go, there's another featuring Dominic Thiem and wild card Andy Murray meeting in the first round.ĭK: Fun as it’s been to cover things from home, I, for one, am personally furious to not have been extended a wild card so I could be there in person-and it would appear I’m not the only one! Fernando Verdasco kicked off quite a debate on social media when it was revealed the 38-year-old and former world No. The men’s draw just came out, and we’ve got Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz in the same quarter, and both in the same half of the draw as Novak Djokovic, which should make for some exciting matches. Stephanie Livaudais: Hi David! For me it’s always great to see Garbiñe Muguruza get a win at home-and her 300th career win at that-especially after coming back from a shoulder injury and spending time away from the court. What have you made of the Mutua Madrid Open matches thus far? Naomi Osaka looks primed for a clay-court redemption arc with an impressive win over Istanbul champ Anastasia Potapova on Friday, and I’ve got my popcorn ready for Paula Badosa’s second-rounder against Simona Halep. David Kane: ¡Hola, Steph! It feels like old times, only now with twice the tours to cover from when we both reported for.
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