{"id":102810,"date":"2026-04-17T17:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=102810"},"modified":"2026-04-17T17:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:41:19","slug":"madrid-open-8-wta-players-receive-wild-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/04\/17\/madrid-open-8-wta-players-receive-wild-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid Open: 8 WTA Players Receive Wild Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stars of women’s tennis are heading to Madrid for the first of two WTA 1000s on clay. With the French Open<\/a> precisely a month away, the search for momentum, points, and titles will be up for grabs. Aryna Sabalenka is set to mark her return to action after completing the Sunshine Double last month.<\/p>\n

The Belarusian is the tournament’s defending champion. She has won three of four finals in Madrid. The top contenders for the title will also include Australian Open<\/a> champion Elena Rybakina, last year’s runner-up Coco Gauff and 2024 champion Iga Swiatek. Moreover, eight players will join the field as wild cards.<\/p>\n

Madrid Open: 8 WTA Players Receive Wild Cards<\/h2>\n

Topping the list of women’s wild cards is seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, Venus Williams<\/strong>. The legendary American has not played a clay-court match since the 2021 French Open. Williams is a former finalist at the Madrid Open. She shockingly lost to Aravane Rezai in the 2010 final.<\/p>\n

Two other Americans joining Williams in the main draw are Robin Montgomery<\/strong> and Ashlyn Krueger<\/strong>. Montgomery returned to action at the end of March and played her first match since last year’s Wimbledon at the WTA 250 event in Bogota. Krueger exited the Top 100 after losing nine of 16 matches in 2026 and did not meet the cut-off entry<\/p>\n

Two home players have received wild cards. These are former World No. 2 Paula Badosa<\/a><\/strong> and 25-year-old Carlota Martinez Cirez<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

The sole South American wild card entrant is Colombia’s Emiliana Arango,<\/strong> who will make her third main draw appearance in Madrid.<\/p>\n

Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva<\/strong> made history earlier this year when she became Andorra’s first Top 100<\/a> singles player. The 20-year-old resides and trains in Spain and will look to address her poor record in Madrid (1-4\u00a0 win-loss record). She is the seventh wild card.<\/p>\n

The final wild card is Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic<\/strong>. This will be her sixth main draw appearance in Madrid. Tomljanovic has registered one win in her last five attempts.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Syndication: Desert Sun\/USAToday Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stars of women’s tennis are heading to Madrid for the first of two WTA 1000s on clay. With the French Open precisely a month away, the search for momentum, points, and titles will be up for grabs. Aryna Sabalenka is set to mark her return to action after completing the Sunshine Double last month. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":87034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,4],"tags":[4130,16716,42919,15201,12171,11908,70,10650],"class_list":["post-102810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-ajla-tomljanovic","tag-ashlyn-krueger","tag-carlota-martinez-cirez","tag-emiliana-arango","tag-paula-badosa","tag-robin-montgomery","tag-venus-williams","tag-victoria-jimenez-kasintseva"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102847,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102810\/revisions\/102847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}