Venus, Andreescu given Wimbledon wildcard for mixed doubles

Michael Venus and Bianca Andreescu have been given a wildcard to play in the mixed doubles draw at Wimbledon.

The New Zealand/ Canadian team, which made it to the final at Roland Garros last month, have been drawn against Marta Kostyuk from Ukraine and Marcelo Arevalo from El Salvador in the first round.

Kostyuk caused one of the biggest upsets at Wimbledon on Wednesday by beating the No 8 seed Maria Sakkari from Greece 0-6 7-5 6-2 in the first round of the women’s singles. 

The cut off for the mixed doubles was exceptionally high this year, with the last direct acceptance being Matwe Middelkoop from the Netherlands, who is ranked 27 and world No 32 Aldila Sutjiadi from Indonesia.

Unfortunately, Erin Routliffe, who was looking to team up with Australia’s Jason Kubler, has missed out on making it into the draw and they are sixth on the alternates list, so would need an unusual high number of withdrawals to make it in.