Piotr Wozniacki criticized the WTA for not supporting returning players like his daughter Caroline, who struggled to re-enter tennis after starting a family, highlighting issues like Wild Card allocations and the lack of recognition for women athletes sport.pl/tenis/7,64987,…
Caroline Wozniacki's father rails against WTA's lack of support for returnee mothers after Roland Garros snub
WTATuesday, 21 May 2024 at 07:06
Caroline Wozniacki's father Piotr who has often been seen at the side of the former World No.1 has hit out at the WTA for not supporting returning mothers. He has called the organisation amateur and slammed issues like wildcard allocations.
This comes after Wozniacki was snubbed for a Roland Garros wildcard. She decided against playing qualifying despite being in the top 120. This move was supposedly to see if she was respected. According to Piotr, there needs to be more support for those who have returned and are starting from scratch like her daughter and have already garnered respect in the sport.
"The WTA believes that it is operating in an amateur fashion in the world of the largest professional women's sport of all sports in the world. They sign contracts with the players and the players are obliged to do certain things under these contracts. And what do they get? Nothing, really nothing!" said Wozniacki to Sport.PL.
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"Caroline was number one in her ranking. She won a Grand Slam tournament, won the Masters, played in almost 60 finals of their tournaments and won 30. So we are talking about a complete tennis player, someone who did a great job, who certainly increased the popularity of tennis, who earned a lot of money herself, but let them earn money. even much more. And it turns out that when someone like Caroline Wozniacki comes back as Caroline Wozniacki and family, she is no longer welcome. We can't even prepare Caroline's starting plan! We train, we prepare, and it turns out that there is nothing to do.
"This is happening because today in tennis everything is based only on relationships, on acquaintances, and not on clear rules. The thing is that if we know the organizers or tournament directors, we get a chance to play, but if we don't know someone somewhere, they don't want us there.
Caroline Wozniacki has solely relied on wildcards since her return to the sport in 2023. Albeit not through want of trying.
"Naturally, after the maternity break, my daughter had zero points. It takes a lot of time to start from scratch and reach the top, but we would do it patiently, but how can we do it when you don't let a girl like that work for it? The rules in tennis today are such that there is no longer a mandatory wild card for someone who was once in the top 20, had a long break and came back. This card was really helpful for tennis players coming back after having a baby and for those coming back from serious injuries. And now Caroline, Angelique Kerber or Naomi Osaka are dependent only on someone else's decisions. Since last year, all wild cards are the property of the tournaments, and the WTA washes its hands of them."
Why did Wozniacki not bother with Roland Garros
He went on to slam the thought process of Rome and said that of those who are picked, only a few are technically ready to lay these tournaments. “All wild cards, and there were 8 of them, were given to the Italians. I understand promoting their players, but how can you give the right to play in a tournament of this rank to such girls who should not even think that they could play in a Masters yet?”
In the case of Roland Garros, she didn't enter qualifying as she wanted to gauge respect and won't return after being disrespected according to her father.“Sure we could but Caroline said that she didn't work hard all her life and didn't achieve that much to start like a junior now. At some point in life, however, there should be respect in a sport in which a person meant something”
“Caroline told me that it's hard - if she doesn't get a wild card to RG she won't play in it. She would rather wait for them to respond to her request than to apply for the qualifying….I'll tell you that Caroline will definitely not play next year. We have already decided”
He did say though that she will attempt to qualify for Wimbledon and open the gate to it albeit she has written to the tournament to request a wildcard. Albeit he said they did the same for Roland Garros and weren't replied to. He opened up on her thought process surrounding not playing qualifying. “Caroline is not the type of person who considers qualies a dishonour. But in RG case, she wanted to see if she was respected. That's why she didn't enter qualies”
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