Rankings favoured for final wild card selections

It was already confirmed that eight British players, including Laura Robson, Heather Watson, James Ward and Hull’s Katie O’Brien, would be handed places in the first round of the singles.

Yesterday the Wimbledon referee’s office announced the complete list, with two named players added to both the men’s and women’s singles line-up and the eighth and final slots in each draw going to the highest-ranked players who missed out on automatic inclusion.

Those final places could have gone to British players, such as Alex Bogdanovic or Oli Golding, the 17-year-old who reached the boys’ singles semi-finals at Wimbledon last year.

They have to be satisfied with wild cards for the qualifying tournament.

Wimbledon referee Andrew Jarrett said: “They could have been given to anyone but we felt we would support the rankings and award them on that basis.

“There were many options open to the tennis committee but we have a lot of respect for people who have gained their world rankings.”

The wild cards distributed yesterday were done so strictly on merit.

Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, ranked 100th in the world and a Wimbledon quarter-finalist two years ago, was handed a wild card after reaching the final of the AEGON Classic at Edgbaston.

Greece’s Eleni Daniilidou, who won the grass-court tournament in Nottingham a week ago, also gets a wild card.

Israel’s Dudi Sela, 26, is handed a place in the men’s draw after winning three low-profile tournaments in the past month, including one of the two events staged in Nottingham.

The other Nottingham tournament was won by Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller, and he, too, receives a wild card.

Ward will arrive at Wimbledon next week on a high, despite losing to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals at Queens over the weekend.

Ward, the British No 2, is ranked 216 in the world and had reached the last four with the two biggest victories of his career – against Stanislas Wawrinka and defending champion Sam Querrey.

But Tsonga proved too strong, breaking Ward at the first opportunity and then coming from a break down in the second set to seal a 6-3 7-6 (8/6) victory.

It was the first time since Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski in 2001 that Britain had two players in the semi-finals at Queen’s Club.

“It has been a fantastic week for me, my best so far and I hope to build on it,” said Ward.

“It wasn’t expected, but I always knew I could do it. Sometimes it does take a little while to come out.

“There are guys who stop playing their best tennis when they’re 18, 19, 20, and there’s other guys from 24, 25, 26.

“So I think it’s different these days – there are so many good players. Hopefully I can finish in the top 100 by the end of the year. It would be nice.”

Ward’s defeat followed British No 1 Andy Murray’s storming semi-final win over American Andy Roddick in less than an hour.

Murray was unstoppable as he easily despatched Roddick, the four-time champion at Queen’s Club and one of the best grass court players of his generation, 6-3 6-1.

Elena Baltacha stepped up her Wimbledon preparations by triumphing in the final of the AEGON Nottingham Challenge yesterday.

The British No 1 completed a successful week by beating Czech player Petra Cetkovska 7-5 6-3 in the final of the $100,000 tournament.

Because of heavy rain, the match had to be moved from the outside grass surface to an indoor court, but the switch did not trouble world No 74 Baltacha.

She collected the trophy and the top prize of $15,200 – £9,400 – for her 10th career title at ITF level, the tier below the main WTA Tour.

Baltacha had claimed a fine win over 41st-ranked Lucie Hradecka earlier in the tournament, and pulled clear once she got ahead against world No 92 Cetkovska yesterday.

“It’s great to win a title this big, especially playing at home,” Baltacha said. “It makes it even more special.

“The decision to go indoors was made pretty quickly and, to be honest, I felt like I had a better chance going indoors, so none of that bothered me at all.

“In the first set, I think we both started a little bit hit-and-miss, probably because we hadn’t hit indoors and we needed to get used to it.

“Then by the end of the first set, I felt like I was dominating. It was me getting things going.

“Once I won that set, I think I lifted. I felt very confident to push on and I relaxed and I thought, ‘Okay, I can really go for it now’. She started playing better towards the end by then it was too late.”

She added: “This is everything I could have hoped for from this week. I have had enough preparation on the grass going into Eastbourne and my form has been solid all week.

“I couldn’t ask for more going into Eastbourne (this week) and Wimbledon.”