A pair of two-time Grand Slam champions have been awarded wildcards into the main draw of the year's final Grand Slam.
Two-time Australian Open winner and former World No.1 Victoria Azarenka, also a two-time finalist at Flushing Meadows, and 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova are among seven wildcard entries to the women's singles tournament, confirmed on Wednesday by the United States Tennis Association.
The two major champions were joined by rising American Amanda Anisimova, last year's junior girls' singles champion in New York, and last year's junior Wimbledon winner Claire Liu in Wednesday's announcement.
The quartet will join Asia Muhammad and Whitney Osuigwe, who were announced earlier this week.
Read more: Muhammad and Osuigwe secure US Open wildcards
Muhammad won the US Open Wild Card Challenge, which awards one American man and woman a wildcard into the US Open based on their performance at select hardcourt events over a five-week period, while 16-year-old Osuigwe won the USTA Billie Jean King Girls' 18s National Championship.
Though Azarenka and Kuznetsova are currently ranked World No.87 and World No.88, respectively, by virute of results in the summer hardcourt season thus far, their rankings were outside the cutoff for direct acceptance when the entry list closed in July.
France’s Harmony Tan and one Australian woman to be announced at a later date will also receive US Open main draw wild cards, by virtue of the wildcard exchange agreements between the USTA and those two Grand Slam nations.
Tan will make her Grand Slam main draw at age 20 debut after winning the French Federation’s wild card playoff.
The USTA also announced the nine women who have been awarded wild card entries into the US Open Qualifying Tournament, which will be held Aug. 21-24 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
The recipients are 2016 US Open girls' champion Kayla Day, 14-year-old girls' French Open champion and World No.1 Coco Gauff, who was the youngest-ever girls’ singles finalist at the US Open last year; 16-year-old Caty McNally, who was runner-up to Gauff in Paris and won the girls' there; Ashley Kratzer, last year's USTA Girls’ 18s national champion; 2017 Wimbledon girls' finalist Ann Li; five-time Grand Slam doubles champion Bethanie Mattek-Sands; Jessica Pegula, who nearly won the US Open Wild Card Challenge this summer; former All-American at USC Danielle Lao; and Gail Brodsky, the 2008 USTA Girls’ 18s national champion and now mother of two who returned to professional tennis this year.
