Australian youngster Thanasi Kokkinakis was granted a wild card to the Queen's Club tournament, the Aegon Championships. The youngster has yet to play this year due to a shoulder injury which kept him out in addition to a slow recovery process. The 20-year-old who reached new heights last year has fallen out of the top 200 of the ATP World Tour rankings and has all but seen his hopes to represent Australia at the Summer Olympics dashed because of the injury. However, with this wild card, it will help him get some match play and warmed up for Wimbledon, an event he will be playing in the main draw in, using his protected ranking of 81.
Warming Up on Grass
The 20-year-old is set to play his first three tournaments of 2016 on grass. His first event will be at Queen's where he was given the wild card and will continue in at Wimbledon. His third event of the season will be in Newport at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships. The Australian is expected to be joined by Ivo Karlovic, Marcos Baghdatis, Steve Johnson, and defending champion Rajeev Ram in the Newport field as well. Currently, Kokkinakis sits at 226 in the world but due to his injury which made him unable to defend hi French Open points, he will fall outside of the top 300 to 325 in the world.
Queen's Wildcards
Queen's Club tournament director tweeted that Kokkinakis is one of four players to receive wild cards from the ATP 500 event in London. World number two Andy Murray received a wild card and is the defending champion of the event. He's looking to successfully defend his title for the first-time ever and become the first man to win five titles in Queen's. Colin Fleming and Kyle Edmund also were granted wild cards.