Western & Southern Open Qualifying Wild Cards Include Katie Volynets; Vickery Receives US Open Wild Card; A Look at ITA Summer Nationals Top Seeds

The Western & Southern Open revealed its wild cards for qualifying today, with 2019 USTA National 18s champion Katie Volynets receiving an opportunity to play in the W&S Open/US Open bubble in New York.  The 18-year-old Volynets, who was eligible to defend her title in San Diego before the Nationals were canceled, is currently 343 in the WTA rankings.

The other women's qualifying wild cards were given to Shelby Rogers, Ann Li, CiCi Bellis, Francesca Di Lorenzo and Russia's Anna Kalinskaya. Kalinskaya, 21, is currently 121 in the WTA rankings, and is represented by Octagon, which owns the Western & Southern Open sanction. 

The men's qualifying wild card recipients are all Americans: Mackenzie McDonald, JJ Wolf, Michael Mmoh, Brandon Nakashima and Sebastian Korda. 

Of the 10 Americans who received Western & Southern Open qualifying wild cards, only Volynets is not also going to be in the New York bubble for the US Open.  

Main draw wild cards for the W&S Open were given to Andy Murray of Great Britain and Americans Tennys Sandgren, Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe on the men's side and Caty McNally, Belgium's Kim Clijsters, Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens and Naomi Osaka on the women's side.

After yesterday's US Open wild card announcement, I concluded that Di Lorenzo would probably get in on her own ranking, and that has officially been confirmed just a day later. Notification of the withdrawals of Elina Svitolina(WTA 5), Kiki Bertens(WTA 7) and Barbora Krejcikova(115) resulted in Di Lorenzo, Natalia Vikhlyantseva and Viktoriya Tomova moving into the main draw. Sachia Vickery was given Di Lorenzo's wild card, and Ann Li, who, like Di Lorenzo, received a US Open wild card, is next in, meaning her wild card is also likely to be available soon.

No official word on Andy Murray's US Open wild card being freed up, but that should be just a matter of time.

The current women's US Open entry list is here.

Qualifying is complete for the ITA National Summer Championships at Texas A&M, with the main draw scheduled to kick off with men's first round matches at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, followed by women's first round matches. The ITA has provided bios of the top eight men's seeds and top eight women's seeds here. (One correction: No. 8 seed Emma Staker made the semifinals, not the finals, of the USTA Winter Nationals).