United States and French Australian Open Wildcards Decided

Written by: Staff on 21st December 2010

United States and French Australian Open Wildcards Decided

Ryan Harrison (USA) |

Rising American stars Ryan Harrison and Lauren Davis have earned wildcards into the main draw of Australian Open 2011 after winning their respective USTA Australian Open Wildcard Play-offs in Atlanta, Georgia.

Talented Ryan Harrison achieved promising results at the US Open this year, fighting through qualifying and upsetting world No.17 Ivan Ljubicic (CRO) in the first round, before losing to world No.36 Sergey Stakhovsky (UKR) after pushing him to five-sets.

In the women’s Play-off 17-year-old Lauren Davis defeated the winner of last year’s event, Coco Vandeweghe 6-2 6-2.

Davis, who trains with the Chris Evert Academy in Florida, won all three of her matches during the event without dropping a set, taking her run of wins to 27 consecutive matches. She recently won two ITF Futures events, the Junior Orange Bowl and the prestigious Eddie Herr Junior Championships.

The French Tennis Federation has announced veteran Virginie Razzano and rising star Benoit Paire as the recipients of Australian Open wildcards under the reciprocal agreement.

Razzano, who reached a career high ranking of No.16 in 2009, is currently ranked 114th due to an injury interrupted 2010. Razzano’s best result this year was a third round appearance at the US Open and she has reached the third round of the Australian Open three times – 2001, 06, 08 and 09.

Twenty-one-year-old Benoit Paire, ranked world No.152, will make his Australian Open debut in January. His standout result in 2010 was qualifying for the US Open and winning in the first round over top 100 player German Rainer Schuettler, and pushing world No.25 Feliciano Lopez to five sets in the second round.

Under a reciprocal arrangement with Tennis Australia the USTA and French Tennis Federation award one male and one female player a wildcard into their respective Australian Open main draws.

Olivia Rogowska and Marinko Matosevic, winners of the Australian Open Play-off, are the first Australian’s to earn a main draw wildcard into Australian Open 2011.

Topics: American Stars, Australian Open, Chris Evert, Chris Evert Academy, Coco Vandeweghe, Eddie Herr, Feliciano Lopez, French Tennis Federation, Itf Futures Events, Ivan Ljubicic, Junior Orange Bowl, Lauren Davis, Marinko, Rainer Schuettler, Reciprocal Agreement, Reciprocal Arrangement, Ryan Harrison, Tennis Australia, Usta Tennis, Virginie Razzano