(London) Japan’s Naomi Osaka and three other Grand Slam title winners, Angelique Kerber, Emma Raducanu and Caroline Wozniacki, earned an invitation to the main draw at Wimbledon (July 1-14) on Wednesday.
These passes are granted by the All England Club to players who are not ranked high enough to qualify directly.
Aged 26, Osaka, former world No.1 (in 2019), winner of four Grand Slam titles (two in Melbourne and two at the United States Open), will return to the main draw of Wimbledon for the first time in five years. The Japanese, 113th in the WTA, has shown a return to form this season, seriously upsetting the current queen of the circuit, the Polish Iga Swiatek, at Roland-Garros.
Winner of the 2018 Australian Open, Caroline Wozniacki, a 33-year-old Dane who was also at the top of the world rankings, also benefited from an invitation, even though she is only 114th in the WTA.
“I won the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2005, so that was a long time ago. There’s something so special about playing on Centre Court at Wimbledon that you can’t replicate anywhere else,” she said.
The German Angelique Kerber, winner of Wimbledon in 2018 and former world number 1 who had taken a break, and the British Emma Raducanu, who caused a sensation by winning the United States Open in 2021 for her first participation, complete this quartet.
The 21-year-old will make her Grand Slam return after wrist and ankle operations in 2023 which sidelined her from the courts.