Wimbledon Wild Cards Include Stanford's Arthur Fery, Qualifying WCs Go to 2022 Junior Champions Poljicak and Hovde; Sheltons Begin Collaboration; Ulises Beats Dali in Blanch Brothers' Challenger Contest in Poland; Dominican Republic's ITF WTT Events Draw American Collegians

Wimbledon announced its initial batch of wild cards today, and while only two collegians received a main draw singles wild cards, next week's qualifying tournament will feature a handful of junior and college players.

Stanford rising senior Arthur Fery, who has competed in Wimbledon qualifying the past two years, will make his main draw debut. The 20-year-old, who is from Wimbledon, has signed with a management agency, but under new NCAA rules he is still eligible to return to Stanford should he choose. The prize money for the first round is around $70,000 US dollars, so that may also play a role in his decision.

The second collegian is former Memphis star Ryan Peniston, who is something of a grass specialist. The 27-year-old reached the quarterfinals of all four Wimbledon warmup events he played last year, including at an ATP 250 and the ATP 500 at Queen's Club. He received a Wimbledon main draw wild card based on those results last year and reached the second round. Although he has lost in the second round of the three grass tournaments he's played, he has proven he can beat Top 40 players on the surface, most recently No. 37 Ugo Humbert of France this week at Queen's Club.

The seven women's main draw wild cards announced include five British players, Elina Svitolina of Ukraine and Venus Williams. 

There are two men's main draw wild cards and one women's main draw wild card yet to be announced.

The qualifying wild cards include both of the 2022 junior champions. Seventeen-year-old Liv Hovde, now 277 in the WTA rankings, is only about 50 spots outside direct entry into women's qualifying.

Boys champion Mili Poljicak of Croatia, 660 in the ATP rankings, will turn 19 this year during the second week of Wimbledon. Wimbledon has traditionally offered qualifying wild cards to the previous year's junior champions. 

Rising Wake Forest freshman Luca Pow earned his qualifying wild card by winning the British National 18s championship this spring. Tennessee All American Johannes Monday and South Carolina All American Toby Samuel were given qualifying wild cards. Four of the nine qualifying wild cards have yet to awarded, with two being decided by the LTA's annual Wild Card Playoff beginning Thursday. The men's draw is here.

Sixteen-year-old Isabelle Lacy was awarded a qualifying wild card as the British National 18s champion. She is joined by two other juniors, 14-year-old Hannah Klugman and 15-year-old Mingge Xu. Four more qualifying wild cards will be awarded, with two filled via the Wild Card playoff. The women's draw is here. NCAA singles semifinalist Amelia Rajecki(NC State) is among those competing in the Wild Card playoff.

Other notable wild cards include three men's doubles wild cards: John Isner and Jack Sock of the US, Samuel and Connor Thomson(South Carolina) and Monday and Jake Fearnley(TCU), all from Great Britain. Julian Cash(Mississippi State/Oklahoma State) also received a doubles wild card, although not with his partner Henry Patten(UNC-Asheville), who I assume is injured. (They may not have needed a wild card with their Top 60 ATP rankings). Cash is paired with Luke Johnson(Clemson), who is outside the Top 100 in the ATP doubles rankings.

The wild card list, as of today, can be found here.

In this recent ATP article, 2022 NCAA champion Ben Shelton(Florida) talks about his introduction to grass, and how his father Bryan has been preparing him for the challenges of the surface. Bryan has obviously coached Ben for many years, but he is now officially a coach on the ATP Tour, and he had notable success on the surface, winning two ATP titles at Newport and reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon. 

Another kind of family tennis collaboration took place today at the ATP Challenger 100 in Poland, where the Blanch brothers played each other for a spot in the quarterfinals. It was big brother Ulises, 25, who came out on top, defeating 20-year-old wild card Dali 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. Ulises, who qualified for the main draw, has reached his second Challenger quarterfinal of the year.

With the five USTA Pro Circuits this week, which I detailed yesterday, you might not expect two other ITF World Tennis Tour men's and women's tournaments to draw much American participation, but a surprising number opted for the Dominican Republic this week.

At the women's $25,000 tournament in Santo Domingo, four women have advanced to Thursday's third round(it's a 48-draw): qualifier Lea Ma(Georgia), DJ Bennett(Auburn), Carolyn Ansari(Auburn) and qualifier Katja Wiersholm(Cal). Former Baylor standout Melany Krywoj of Argentina defeated top seed Katharina Hobgarski of Germany 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the second round today.

At the men's $15,000 tournament in Santo Domingo, nine of the 16 players through to the second round are Americans, including No. 2 seed Andres Martin(Georgia Tech). Ohio State's No. 1 Justin Boulais of Canada is the top seed. University of South Carolina rising freshman Jelani Sarr, a qualifier, beat No. 4 seed Jack Anthrop(Ohio State) 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Sarr has played only two events this year, so it's good to see him putting up this kind of result with so little match play.