NEW YORK – Two-time champion Naomi Osaka and former US Open winners Stan Wawrinka, Dominic Thiem and Bianca Andreescu received wildcards for this year’s tournament on Wednesday.
Osaka won the first of her four Grand Slam titles at Flushing Meadows in 2018 and won the title again in 2020. But like the other former champions who received a wildcard from the US Tennis Association, she has missed a lot of time in recent seasons and was not ranked high enough to qualify directly for the tournament.
Osaka returned to the WTA Tour this season after giving birth to a daughter last year, but she is still searching for the form that propelled her to the No. 1 ranking and made her one of the most dominant players on hard courts, as well as winning the Australian Open twice.
Osaka, who also left the tour for mental health reasons, lost in qualifying for the Cincinnati Open this week. In an Instagram post afterwards, she wrote that it was a strange feeling, “missing balls that I shouldn’t miss, hitting balls that are softer than I remembered.”
Andreescu, a Canadian who defeated Serena Williams at the 2019 US Open, missed nine months last year with a back injury before returning to tour at the French Open.
Thiem will get the chance to play one final Grand Slam tournament after announcing earlier this year that he would retire after the season. The 30-year-old Austrian won his only major title at the 2020 US Open but has struggled with a wrist injury for much of the past three years.
Wawrinka, 39, won the 2016 US Open, one of his three Grand Slam titles. Like Thiem, he rose to third place in the ATP rankings but has fallen out of the top 100. He will be making his 72nd Grand Slam main draw appearance, the fifth most of all time.
The Americans Amanda Anisimova, McCartney Kessler, Alexa Noel and Iva Jovic, along with Chloe Paquet from France and Taylah Preston from Australia, also received wildcards for the women’s main field.
In the men’s competition, Americans Chris Eubanks, Learner Tien, Zachary Svajda and Matthew Forbes as well as Frenchman Alexandre Muller and Australian Tristan Schoolkate received wildcards.
The US Open begins on August 26th.
