(April 29, 2013) The Mutua Madrid Open has named the men and women who will make up the list of wild cards at this year’s edition of the Caja Mágica competition, which will take place between the 3rd and 12th of May.
Pablo Andújar, Romania’s Marius Copil, recent quarterfinalist at the Conde de Godó tournament, Tommy Robredo, and Madrid local Javier Martí have all received invites to compete in the main event. While this will be Copil’s first time to play in the Mutua Madrid Open, all the others already have experience in the competition. Pablo Andújar has taken part in the last two editions, Martí received a wild card invitation last year, where he was sent out of the first round by Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny, and Robredo is a veteran of the tournament, having taken part in every edition of the competition between 2002 and 2009, reaching the quarter-finals in 2004.
Meanwhile, Spain’s Guillermo García-López and Pere Riba, as well as Ukraine’s Sergei Stakhovsky have all received wild card invites to play in the preliminary phase of the tournament. García-López, who recently reached the Bucharest final, has taken part in the last four editions of the competition, reaching the third round in 2009 and 2010. The fourth and final invitation to compete in the preliminary phase of the competition will go to the winner of the Under 18 Mutua Madrid Open, which gets underway today. In the doubles competition,
Spanish pair Fernando Verdasco and David Marrero have also received a wild card invite.
In the women’s competition Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova, Romania’s Simona Halep and Spain’s Lourdes Domínguez, Anabel Medina and Silvia Soler have all received invites to the main draw. The veteran of the bunch is Hantuchova, who will have another chance to shine on the Madrid clay, as will Halep, who at just 20 years of age has already shown her ability in last year’s first round nail-biter against Venus Williams. Meanwhile, Medina, Soler and Lourdes Domínguez, who is at the top of her game having reached the Marrakech final last week, will be looking to become the first Spanish women to ever reach the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals.
Three of the wild card invites for the preliminary phase have gone to Germany’s Andrea Petkovic, Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru and France’s Aravane Rezai, who beat Venus Williams in the final of the 2010 Mutua Madrid Open to be crowned champion, while the fourth will go to the winner of the Under 18 Mutua Madrid Open competition. The three wild cards for the doubles competition have gone to Lisa Raymond and Laura Robson as well as the two Spanish pairings of Silvia Soler/Carla Suárez and Garbiñe Muguruza/Tita Torró, the latter of whom have already won the Hobart WTA title this year.
