Playoff tournaments to determine U.S. wild card recipients for Roland Garros
April 27, 2009
The USTA is hosting a playoff this week to award a men’s and a women’s singles main draw wild card to the 2009 French Open. The men’s wild card tournament will take place on the clay courts of the Boca West Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla., April 28-30. The women’s wild card tournament will be held April 29-May 2 at the same location. The USTA and the French Tennis Federation have a reciprocal agreement in which wild card entries into the main draw at the 2009 French Open and 2009 US Open are exchanged.
Eight players are scheduled to compete for the men’s wild card: John Isner, 24, of Tampa, Fla.; Scoville Jenkins, 22, of Atlanta; Evan King, 17, of Chicago; Jesse Levine, 21 of Boca Raton, Fla.; Michael McClune, 19, of Irvine, Calif.; Nathan Pasha, 16, of Atlanta; Rhyne Williams, 18, of Knoxville, Tenn.; and Donald Young, 19, of Atlanta.
Eleven players will compete for the women’s wild card: Kristie Ahn, 16, of Upper Saddle River, N.J.; Gail Brodsky, 17, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Beatrice Capra, 17, of Ellicott City, Md.; Lauren Embree, 18, of Marco Island, Fla.; Nicole Gibbs, 16, of Manhattan Beach, Calif.; Madison Keys, 14, of Boca Raton, Fla.; Christine McHale, 16, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Asia Muhammad, 18, of Henderson, Nev.; Sloane Stephens, 16, of Fresno, Calif.; Stacey Tan, 17, of Lakewood, Calif.; and CoCo Vandeweghe, 17, of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Both tournaments will be in a knock-out format, the seedings of which will be determined by today’s ATP World Tour and Sony Ericsson WTA rankings.
Isner and McHale won similar events last December to earn main draw wild cards into the 2009 Australian Open.