 "US Open 2024: Wildcards for former champions Osaka, Thiem, Wawrinka, Andreescu")
Two-time champion Naomi Osaka and fellow former winners Stan Wawrinka, Dominic Thiem and Bianca Andreescu were given wildcards on Wednesday for the US Open.
Osaka won the first of her four major titles at Flushing Meadows in 2018 and won it again in 2020. But like the other past champions given wildcards by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), she has missed significant time in recent seasons and was not ranked high enough to qualify directly for the tournament.
Osaka returned to the tour this season after giving birth last year to a daughter, but is still searching for form that led her to climbing to the top of the ranks and made her one of the most dominant players on hard courts, having also won the Australian Open twice.
Osaka, who also stepped away from professional sport for mental health reasons, lost in qualifying for this week’s ongoing Cincinnati Open.
She wrote afterward in an Instagram post that it was a strange feeling “missing balls that I shouldn’t miss, hitting balls softer than I remember I used to.”
Andreescu, who beat Serena Williams for the 2019 US Open title, missed nine months last year with a back injury before returning this year at the French Open.
Thiem will get a chance to play his final Grand Slam tournament, having announced earlier in the year that he would retire after the season. The 30-year-old Austrian won his lone major title at the 2020 US Open, but has battled a wrist injury for much of the last three years.
Wawrinka, 39, won the 2016 US Open for one of his three Grand Slam titles. Like Thiem, he rose as high as No. 3 in the ATP rankings but has fallen outside the top-100. He will be making his 72nd appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, fifth all-time.
Other players to be awarded a wildcard are: Americans Amanda Anisimova, McCartney Kessler, Alexa Noel and Iva Jovic into the women’s main draw, along with Chloe Paquet of France and Taylah Preston of Australia.
Men to receive wild cards were Americans Chris Eubanks, Learner Tien, Zachary Svajda and Matthew Forbes, along with France’s Alexandre Muller and Australian Tristan Schoolkate.
The US Open gets underway on August 26.
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