AUSTRALIAN OPEN WILD CARD CHALLENGE TO BEGIN WEEK OF OCTOBER 22

Main Draw Wild Cards into 2019 Australian Open to be Awarded to Top-Performing

American Man and Woman over Fall Run of Hard-Court Events

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., October 4, 2018 – The USTA today announced that the Australian Open Wild Card Challenge, which utilizes indoor and outdoor hard-court pro tournaments to award an American man and woman a main draw wild card into the Australian Open, will kick off the week of October 22 for the women and October 29 for the men and conclude the week of November 12 for both. The USTA and Tennis Australia have a reciprocal agreement in which main draw wild cards for the 2019 Australian Open and US Open are exchanged.

The men’s wild card will go to the American with the highest cumulative total of ATP singles ranking points earned from their best two results during the three-week men’s window, including results from any professional hard-court event at the ATP Challenger level and above around the world.

The women’s wild card will be awarded to the American with the highest cumulative total of WTA singles ranking points earned from their best three results during those four weeks, at three $80,000 USTA Pro Circuit women’s events (main draw points only) and one WTA $125,000 event (main draw and qualifying points).

Only Americans who do not earn direct entry into the Australian Open are eligible. In the event of a tie, the player with the best ATP or best WTA singles ranking on Nov. 19 will be awarded the wild card.

All USTA Pro Circuit tournaments will be streamed live on www.procircuit.usta.com. The Challengewill consist of the following events:

Men’s Events

• Week of October 29: ATP Masters 1000 (Paris); USTA Pro Circuit $75,000 Challenger (Charlottesville, Va.); ATP $75,000 Challengers (Canberra, Australia; Shenzhen, China)
• Week of November 5: ATP €106,000 Challenger (Bratislava, Slovakia); ATP €85,000 Challenger (Mouilleron-le-Captif, France); USTA Pro Circuit $75,000 Challenger (Knoxville, Tenn.)
• Week of November 12: ATP $150,000 Challengers (Houston; Bangalore, India); USTA Pro Circuit $75,000 Challenger (Champaign, Ill.); ATP $50,000 Challenger (Kobe, Japan)

Women’s Events

• Week of October 22: USTA Pro Circuit $80,000 Event (Macon, Ga.)
• Week of October 29: USTA Pro Circuit $80,000 Event (Tyler, Texas)
• Week of November 5: USTA Pro Circuit $80,000 Event (Las Vegas)
• Week of November 12: WTA $125,000 Series Event (Houston, Texas)

The USTA also utilizes this wild card challenge format for the US Open and the French Open. The US Open winners this year were Bradley Klahn and Asia Muhammad. The French Open winners were Taylor Townsend, who reached the second round at Roland Garros, and Noah Rubin. Townsend also was the winner of the 2017 Australian Open Wild Card Challenge, alongside Tim Smyczek, who advanced to the second round in Melbourne this past January.

The 2019 Australian Open will be held January 14-27.