Heineken Open might not have a single local player in the main draw – Tennis News
Heineken Open is the biggest tennis event that is held on the soil of New Zealand, providing a platform to the local players to show their talent and groom themselves for the future.
Though it is expected that for the first time in the history of this ATP World Tour 250 hard court event, not a single player from New Zealand would be able to participate in the main draw.
Usually, wild card entries are given to local junior players or the ones who have given good performance in recent past but do not have good enough ranking to book their place directly in the main draw of the tournament.
However, there is not a single New Zealander tennis player who has given the level of performance in the last season which justifies a wild card entry. Such is the pity state of tennis in the country that just two of its players are in the top 500 of the
world.
New Zealand’s highest ranked tennis player, Jose Statham, is at the 358thposition in the world. He attained his career best ranking of 294 almost three years back but he failed to improve it further. On the other hand, country’s second best player, Daniel
King-Turner, got as high as 217 but ended with the same fate as his compatriot.
Tournament director of Heineken Open, Karl Budge, has plans to award wild cards to some better players from other countries. President of New Zealand Tennis, Steve Johns, stated that they would have given one to their highest ranked player if he would be
in 200s but they cannot do anything in these conditions.
John said, “If they haven't made the big jump forward and perhaps got up into the 200s, the low 200s, then it's a bit of an easy decision. So yeah we would've liked to have seen some of our guys progress a bit more than they have over the past 12 months.”
Statham and King-Turner will be featuring in the qualifying matches but it is highly unlikely that anyone of those two would be able to make it to the main draw.
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