[jayakris]

Today's news release. Chanda Rubin will play doubles with Manisha Malhotra. They get the second doubles wildcard, after Sania and Pierce got the first one.

Still no sign that Nirupama was even asked. I am sad about that, though happy for Manisha.

Jay

[spiceboy]

Chanda & Manisha don't need a WC since they have a combined ranking of #222. They could have played in the AO as a direct entry if they wanted. Plus I find weird that they award 2 WC in a 16 teams field...

[jayakris]

Thanks for pointing that out spiceboy. I forgot that. You are right; they may not need a wildcard at all.

There ARE two doubles wildcards in the 16 team field at the WTA events.

Jay

[danielrosario]

What's the possibility of the 2 wildcard pairs meeting in the final?

Of course Pierce yesterday won the first set of her match against Farina 6-3 and then totally fell apart losing the next two 6-1 6-0.
I hope this isn't due to some injury

[spiceboy]

Originally posted by jayakris

There ARE two doubles wildcards in the 16 team field at the WTA events.

Jay

I think you're wrong jayakris, there is 1 WC and 1 Q spot in a 16 field at WTA events

[jayakris]

spiceboy -- yes, you are right that normally it is only ONE wildcard in draws of 16. I stand corrected on that. I was sure that I had seen somes cases of 2 wildcards in some WTA events (I just found one at Bratislava, for instance - there may be others).

So, I ended up looking at the 360 page WTA rule book .. and of course, ended up getting quite confused.

The bottom line is, all kinds of exceptions are there on the one wildcard rule, and mostly in relation to gold and silver exempt players.

Both Pierce and Rubin are among the twenty Gold exempt players for 2003. Based on my first reading of the rules, it appears that BOTH the wildcards given so far, Pierce-Sania and Rubin-Malhotra may not count as wildcards, and they may even have a THIRD wildcard to give away!

I guess it is VERY unusual for the Gold exempt players to be willing to team up with somebody they don't even know, as in the case of Hyderabad WTA, so this is a special case.

I am too lazy to re-read the rule book and confirm things, but that might explain why the tournament has not said that ALL the wildcard options have been exhausted.

Jay