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Every year, some fans and media think Wimbledon is somehow going to reverse course and give wild cards to international players who don’t have a history at the All-England Club.

That, despite their philosophy that the wild cards and “usually offered on the basis of past performance at WImbledon or to increase British interest“.

And just about every year, the AELTC does what it always does: hand the wild cards to the third Grand Slam of the season to its own players. It doesn’t even have recipropcal wild cards with the other Grand Slams, as the other three do.

And so, on Wednesday, the singles wild cards were announced. With no surprises.

Here’s the full list, including doubles and qualifying.

Women’s singles

Francesca Jones (GBR) (No. 113)(24)
Harriet Dart (GBR) (No. 118)(28)
Heather Watson (GBR) (No. 166)(33)
Jodie Burrage (GBR) (No. 169)(26)
Mingge Xu (GBR) (No. 409)(17)
Hannah Klugman (GBR) (No. 569)(16)
Mika Stojsavljevic (GBR) (No. 926)(16)

And … Petra Kvitova, the 35-year-old, two-time Wimbledon champion who is currently ranked No. 608 and is returning from maternity leave.

Men’s singles

Daniel Evans (GBR) (No. 215) (35)
Jay Clarke (GBR) (No. 250)(26)
Johannus Monday (GBR) (No. 252)(23)
Oliver Crawford (GBR) (No. 267) (26)
George Loffagen (GBR) (No. 316) (24)
Jack Pinnington Jones (GBR) (No. 338) (22)
Henry Searle (GBR) (No. 444) (19)

There is one wild card left to award on the men’s side – just to keep the speculation going.

Sometimes that last pass goes to a Brit who unexpectedly did well at the tail end of the grass-court swing.

Will they throw a bone at Stan Wawrinka, whose first appearance at WImbledon came 20 years ago, when he lost in the first round to Fabrice Santoro? Wawrinka was a quarterfinalist in 2014 and 2015, but hasn’t made the second week since then. And he’s not entered in the qualifying and hasn’t played any of the grass-court events – not even the Challengers.

Wawrinka, who would qualify by ranking, is not even entered in the qualifying.

No Boisson, No Mboko

It was aspirational, or perhaps wishful thinking, from fans and some media to think that Loïs Boisson, the Frenchwoman whose Cinderella story at Roland Garros moved her from outside the top 300 to No. 62 in the world, might get a spot.

Or even Victoria Mboko of Canada, whose current ranking is well inside the cutoff for the main draw were the deadline to be today.

Mboko, as a junior, was a doubles finalist and singles semifinalist in 2022.

But it’s not a surprise that this didn’t happen. The two will play the qualifying next week.

Non-Brit wild card history

If there was hope that the Brits would look outside the borders for wild cards this year – especially on the women’s side – it’s probably because there were numerous free passes into the main draw in 2024.

But it was an exceptional year, with three former No. 1s coming back from maternity leave in Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki and Naomi Osaka.

Ajla Tomljanovic, a bit of an outlier, also received one. She was returning from a long injury layoff and had just reached the final in Birmingham. Tomjlanovic would have been in the main draw anyway, on a special ranking.

In 2023, the returning mom Elina Svitolina received a wild card, as did multiple Wimbledon champion Venus Williams. In 2022, Serena Williams received one.

As you can see, those are exceptional exceptions – which don’t apply to Boisson, Mboko or any of the other names being floated.

No young prospects on the men’s side

It used to be that Wimbledon would award singles wild cards to players with rock-bottom rankings, but they’ve tightened that up a bit even as they have a few more players in the top 500.

And they have four in the main draw including 30-year-old Billy Harris, whose ranking is at No. 113 this week but who slid in by the deadline.

Evans (No. 199) and Clarke (No. 196) slid back into the top 200 since the rankings above, which are dated May 19 at the singles entry deadline.

They skipped over Jan Choinski (No. 208, age 29) Paul Jubb (No. 264, age 25) and Ryan Peniston (No. 271, age 29) to go a little bit younger. Henry Searle, the 18th ranked Brit, is just 19. You have to go all the way down to junior Oliver Bonding, ranked No. 932, to find the next British teenager in the ATP Tour rankings.

Young British women rewarded

On the women’s side, four veterans top the list.

Heather Watson, 33, received main-draw wild cards in 2023 and 2024. She was straight in in 2022, when she made the fourth round. She was a mixed doubles champion in 2016 and a finalist in 2017.

Burrage received wild cards in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and won a total of one match, in 2023.

But the Brits to have some promising youngsters on the women’s side.

Stojsavljevic, a 16-year-old who already stands a reported 6-foot-1, is the No. 8 junior in the world at the moment and won the US Open juniors last year.

Klugman, who is at No. 3 and is one of those prospects who has been talked about for several year already, went 14-2 through a three-tournament junior clay-court swing last month and made the Roland Garros singles final.

Xu, 17, is already at No. 350 in the WTA Tour rankings and defeated big-serving American Alycia Parks in the first round of the Birmingham WTA 125 two weeks ago. She was at No. 8 in the ITF junior rankings a year ago.

She beat American Katie Volynets in the first round of the Nottingham WTA 250 this week – her WTA Tour-level debut.

Qualifying wild cards

The wilds cards into the qualifying, which begins next Monday, as as follows:

Women: Lily Miyazaki, Amami Banks, Renata Jamrichova of Slovakia (the junior girls’ champion last year), Ella McDonald, Emily Applton, Amelia Rajecki and Ranah Stoiber.

For the men: Paul Jubb, Ryan Penison, Nicolai Budkov Kjayer of Norway (the boys’ champion in 2024), Arthur Fery, Oliver Tarvet and Oliver Bonding.

So, to sum up, the free passes at Wimbledon, as usual, go to the Brits.

As they do, overwhelmingly beyond those reciprocal wild cards, at the other majors.

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