{"id":21963,"date":"2020-12-28T10:15:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T23:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/?p=21963"},"modified":"2020-12-28T10:31:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T00:01:51","slug":"%ef%bb%bfsouth-australias-thanasi-kokkinakis-alex-bolt-and-charlotte-kempenaers-pocz-receive-ao-2021-wildcards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/news\/2020\/12\/28\/%ef%bb%bfsouth-australias-thanasi-kokkinakis-alex-bolt-and-charlotte-kempenaers-pocz-receive-ao-2021-wildcards","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffSouth Australia\u2019s Kokkinakis, Bolt and Kempenaers-Pocz receive AO 2021 wildcards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thanasi Kokkinakis<\/strong> and Alex Bolt<\/strong> have been awarded Australian Open 2021 main draw wildcards, with 16-year-old Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz<\/strong> receiving a wildcard into Australian Open 2021 qualifying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kokkinakis is on\nthe comeback trail, with the former world No.69 set to take part in his fifth\nmain draw at Melbourne Park after missing the 2020 event due to glandular\nfever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m super happy\nand thankful to have gotten a wildcard into the AO,\u201d Kokkinakis said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShattered I\ncouldn\u2019t play this year due to illness but I\u2019m feeling great now and can\u2019t wait\nto get out in front of the home crowd and have some fun.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South\nAustralian, currently ranked 260th, has not played an officially-sanctioned\nmatch since September 2019, but did win a pair of UTR Pro Tennis Series events\nat Melbourne Park last month \u2013 a sign he is rounding into form at just the\nright time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Higher up the rankings is Bolt, who has been rewarded for his impressive performances on tour in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolt, who\nstretched eventual finalist Dominic Thiem<\/strong> to five sets in the second\nround at AO 2020, reached the Launceston Challenger final a month before\nprofessional tennis was suspended due to COVID-19. Bolt was also selected in\nthe Australian Davis Cup Team for the first time in March ahead of the tie in\nAdelaide against Brazil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kempenaers-Pocz\nwill take part in Australian Open qualifying, which will be held offshore\nbetween 10-13 January, with the women competing in Dubai. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After claiming\nthe 18\/u Australian Championship in December 2019, Kempenaers-Pocz won her\nfirst ITF World Tennis Tour junior singles title in February and has enjoyed\nsome excellent results through the UTR Pro Tennis Series events around Australia\nduring 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AO 2021\nmain draw wildcards (as at 28 December 2020)<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n Men\u2019s<\/em><\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Women\u2019s<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Andy\n Murray <\/strong>(GBR)<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Daria Gavrilova<\/strong> (Vic)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Christopher O\u2019Connell <\/strong>(NSW)\n <\/td>\n Astra Sharma <\/strong>(WA)<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Marc Polmans <\/strong>(Vic)<\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Maddison Inglis <\/strong>(WA)<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Thanasi Kokkinakis<\/strong> (SA)\n <\/td>\n Lizette Cabrera <\/strong>(Qld)<\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Alex\n Bolt <\/strong>(SA)\n <\/td>\n Arina Rodionova<\/strong> (Vic)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Aleksandar\n Vukic <\/strong>(NSW)\n <\/td>\n Destanee Aiava <\/strong>(Vic)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Sumit Nagal<\/strong> (IND) \n <\/td>\n Wang Xiyu <\/strong>(CHN)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Wildcard -TBD\n <\/td>\n Wildcard\n \u2013 TBD\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

AO 2021 qualifying wildcards \u2013 10-13 January (as at\n28 December 2020)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n Women\u2019s (Dubai)<\/em><\/strong>\n <\/td>\n Men\u2019s (Doha)<\/em><\/strong>\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Abbie Myers<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td>\n Jason Kubler <\/strong>(Qld)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Seone Mendez<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td>\n Akira Santillan<\/strong>\n (Qld)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Storm Sanders<\/strong>\n (WA)\n <\/td>\n Tristan Schoolkate <\/strong>(WA)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Ivana Popovic<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td>\n Rinky Hijikata<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Olivia Gadecki<\/strong>\n (Qld)\n <\/td>\n Dane Sweeny<\/strong>\n (Qld)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz<\/strong> (SA)\n <\/td>\n Max Purcell<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Alexandra Bozovic<\/strong> (NSW)\n <\/td>\n Blake Mott<\/strong>\n (NSW)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva<\/strong> (AND)\n <\/td>\n Harold Mayot<\/strong>\n (FRA)\n <\/td><\/tr>
\n Wildcard\n – TBD\n <\/td>\n Wildcard\n \u2013 TBD\n <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Australian Open\n2021 tickets are on sale via ticketmaster.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanasi Kokkinakis and Alex Bolt have been awarded Australian Open 2021 main draw wildcards, with 16-year-old Charlotte Kempenaers-Pocz receiving a wildcard into Australian Open qualifying. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5736,"featured_media":21966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}