Wimbledon Qualifying Begins Monday; Barty, Oudin Receive Final Main Draw Wild Cards

The men's qualifying for Wimbledon begins Monday, with twelve Americans competing for the 16 available spots in the main draw.  They are: Michael Russell(4), Jesse Levine(5), Rajeev Ram(8), Brian Baker(11), Bobby Reynolds(14), Wayne Odesnik(20), Ryan Sweeting(21), Michael Yani, Tim Smyczek, Denis Kudla, Alex Kuznetsov and Robby Ginepri.

Brian Baker was really the only player among those 12 that was thought to be in the running for a main draw wild card, but he lost in the qualifying at Queen's and the last wild card went to Grega Zemlja, a 25-year-old from Slovenia, who won the Nottingham Challenger this week.

There are three juniors in the qualifying, all British wild cards: Liam Broady, Kyle Edmund and Luke Bambridge.

The schedule of play for Monday's qualifying, which is held at Roehampton, is here.  The draw is here.

Two other wild cards were announced today, with 2011 Wimbledon girls champion Ashleigh Barty of Australia and Melanie Oudin of the US receiving them.

Barty, 16, just won the singles and doubles titles at the $50,000 ITF Women's Circuit event in Nottingham and had already been granted a qualifying wild card, as is the tradition at the slams for the previous year's junior champion. (2011 boys champion Luke Saville was originally announced as a qualifying wild card, but is not in the draw). It is Barty's third straight main draw slam wild card, having been given one into the Australian Open and into the French, getting Australia's reciprocal wild card there. She lost to Anna Tatishvili and Petra Kvitova, respectively, in the first round.

Oudin has reached the final of the rain-plagued Birmingham WTA event as a qualifier and will play Jelena Jankovic in Monday's championship match. Oudin beat Irina Falconi in the resumption of their quarterfinal match 7-5 in the third today, then beat, in three sets, Ekaterina Makarova in the semifinals later in the day, and that was enough to impress the Wimbledon wild card committee. Oudin didn't even have a place in Wimbledon qualifying before her run in Birmingham, and she is playing in her second straight slam with a wild card. Oudin won the USTA's French Open reciprocal wild card and picked up a win in Paris. 

The complete list of Wimbledon wild cards can be found here.

Also of note, 18-year-old Daria Gavrilova of Russia, the 2010 US Open girls champion, qualified into the main draw of the 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands WTA event this week. She will play Yanina Wickmayer in the first round.