2020 is quite an uncharacteristic year and something (even more) strange has happened at the US Open on the occasion of the wildcard awarding. As pointed out on social media, it took a pandemic to finally get rid of the (in)famous reciprocal wildcards, a heavily criticized system that is used by the slams to favor “their players.”
This year the US Open assigned its wildcards exclusively to American players with the notable exceptions of Andy Murray and Kim Clijsters.
Andy Murray
Ranked world no.129, the Brit hasn’t played a single match in 2020 as he was still struggling with his body following his hip rehabilitation. Andy played his last match on the 20th of November 2019 when he defeated Tallon Griekspoor 6-77 6-4 7-65 in the Rubber 1 of the Davis Cup.
The 2012 US Open champion looked to be quite in a good shape when playing a couple of competitions in the last few weeks to get the right confidence boost to play the US Open.
Kim Clijsters’ comeback
At 37 years of age, Kim Clijsters didn’t convince many people when she announced her comeback. However, the Belgian legend already stunned the tennis community after she won the US Open in 2009 after not even 2 years that she gave birth to her daughter Jada. Kim won the American slam for the 3rd time (the first was in 2005) also the following year in 2010.
Clijsters impressed during the recent World TeamTennis playing fantastic tennis. If her body will hold she can even be a contender at the upcoming US Open.
Here the list of the wildcards
Men
Andy Murray, Ulises Blanch, Maxime Cressy, Sebastian Korda, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski, Michael Mmoh, Brandon Nakashima, and JJ Wolf.
Women
Kim Clijsters, Usue Arconada, CiCi Bellis, Francesca Di Lorenzo, Caroline Dolehide, Ann Li, Robin Montgomery, and Whitney Osuigwe.
