Venus Williams and Elina Svitolina among Wimbledon wildcards

Tennis365 21 Jun 2023 12:44 PM

Five-time Wimbledon singles champion Venus Williams and former semi-finalist Elina Svitolina are among the initial group of players who have been awarded wildcards for next month’s championships.

Williams, who played mixed doubles at the All England Club last year, has not played in the singles event since 2021 but rolled back the years on Monday to beat Camila Giorgi at the Rothesay Classic in Birmingham days after her 43rd birthday.

Williams competes sparingly these days and only played her first tournament since January at a grass-court event in the Netherlands last week before heading to Birmingham.

Her gutsy 7-6 (7-5), 4-6 7-6 (8-6) victory over Giorgi in more than three hours on Monday represented a first win over a top-50 opponent since 2019.

The American has slipped to outside the top 600 in the WTA Rankings, but she is set to rise 140 places following her win on Monday.

Ten singles wildcards have been handed to British male and female players, including Liam Broady and Katie Boulter, while Ukraine’s Svitolina will be involved in Wimbledon after she missed last year’s tournament due to her pregnancy.

Former world No 3 Svitolina gave birth in October but made the quarter-finals at Roland Garros last month in her first Grand Slam since becoming a mother.

Svitolina made the last four at Wimbledon in 2021 and could encounter more Russian and Belarussian players in SW19.

She was booed at the French Open after not shaking hands with Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka following her quarter-final exit.

Boulter is on a high after she won her maiden WTA Tour title at the Nottingham Open on Sunday – defeating Jodie Burrage in the final – although she suffered a first-round exit from the Birmingham Classic on Tuesday.

Burrage and fellow British hopefuls Harriet Dart, Katie Swan, Heather Watson have also been given wildcards.

In the men’s singles Ryan Peniston – who reached the second round on his Wimbledon debut last year – has received a wildcard for the second year in a row, along with fellow Britons Arthur Fery, Jan Choinski and George Loffhagen, with the trio set to make their main draw debuts at Wimbledon.

Belgian David Goffin, the world No 124, has been handed a wildcard following his run to the quarter-finals in 2022, where he lost in five sets to British No 1 Cameron Norrie.

The All England Club has one more women’s singles and two more men’s singles wildcards to hand out.