Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki handed US Open wildcards

Venus Williams and former world No 1 Caroline Wozniacki are among the eight players who have been given wildcards into the 2023 US Open women’s singles main draw.
As part of reciprocal wildcard agreements with Tennis Australia and the French Tennis Federation, the former Grand Slam winners will be joined by Australia’s Storm Hunter and France’s Fiona Ferro.
Also going straight into the main draw will be home players Ashlyn Krueger, Robin Montgomery, Kayla Day, and Clervie Ngounoue.
At Flushing Meadows, where she won consecutive championships in 2000 and 2001, Venus Williams will make her 24th main draw appearance this season.
The now-43-year-old former No 1 returned to the court during the grass-court season after missing nearly six months due to injuries this year. Williams, who can never be written off, won her first Top 20 match since 2019 recently at the WTA 1000 tournament in Cincinnati by defeating Veronika Kudermetova in straight sets.
The 33-year-old Wozniacki will play in her first Grand Slam tournament since quitting tennis to start a family following the 2020 Australian Open. The former world No 1 and Australian Open winner, who has two young children, James, 6 months, and Olivia, 2 years old, is back on the courts where she was runner-up in 2009 and 2014.
The new generation is swiftly moving up the ranks and is ready to leave their imprint, so this year’s wildcard selections aren’t only established legends.
Day entered the Top 100 in July peaking at No 94. The 2016 US Open girls’ singles winner and former No 1 junior player in the world won her wildcard by triumphing in the US Open Wild Card Challenge. She qualified for Roland Garros this year and advanced to the third round, defeating Madison Keys along the way. This season, she has also won two ITF World Tennis Tour W100 championships.
While Krueger and Montgomery will be attempting to go past the Round of 128 for the first time, this will be Ngounoue’s first appearance in the Grand Slam singles main event.
At the age of 19, Krueger won the greatest professional championship of her career in June at the WTA 125 competition in Gaiba, Italy. This will be her third consecutive appearance in the main draw of the US Open.
Montgomery, is competing in the main draw of a major for just the second time, but she is no stranger to victory in Flushing Meadows; at the 2021 US Open, she and Krueger won the junior girls doubles title, and she swept the girls’ singles crown.
Ngounoue earned her wild card by winning the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 18s National Championships.
READ MORE: How Serena Williams keeps sister Venus going on the WTA Tour