Osaka, Kerber, Raducanu, Wozniacki receive Wimbledon wild cards

Four Grand Slam champions on the comeback trail have been announced in the first tranche of wild cards for the Wimbledon main draw, which begins on 1 July -- Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, Emma Raducanu and Caroline Wozniacki.

Four-time major winner Osaka and three-time Slam titlist Kerber returned from maternity leave at the start of the season, and have raised their rankings to No.113 and No.224 respectively.

Osaka reached her first grass-court quarterfinal since 2018 last week in 's-Hertogenbosch, and was the only player to take a set from Iga Swiatek during the World No.1's Roland Garros title run earlier this month. She will be making her first appearance at Wimbledon since 2019, when she lost in the first round to Yulia Putintseva. Osaka's best showings at SW19 so far have been a pair of third-round runs in 2017 and 2018.

Fellow former World No.1 Kerber, the 2018 Wimbledon champion and 2016 runner-up, has reached the last 16 of two WTA 1000 events this year, in Indian Wells and Rome. She will be playing Wimbledon for the first time since reaching the 2022 third round; on her return to grass this week in Berlin, the German fell in three sets to Linda Noskova in the first round.

Raducanu, who became the first British woman to lift a Grand Slam trophy since 1977 at the 2021 US Open, has been on the comeback trail following multiple wrist and ankle surgeries in 2023. Last week, the 22-year-old reached her first semifinal since 2022 in Nottingham, lifting her ranking to No.165. Raducanu made the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2021 as a wild card ranked No.338 playing her second tour-level event.

Former World No.1 Wozniacki returned from maternity leave last August, and is now ranked No.114. The Dane reached the fourth round of Wimbledon six times between 2009 and 2017, but it is the only major at which she has yet to make the quarterfinals. Wozniacki will be playing at Wimbledon for the first time since 2019; on her return to grass this week in Birmingham, she fell in the first round to Elise Mertens.

Raducanu is one of four home players who have received wild cards so far. She is joined by former No.38 and three-time WTA titlist Heather Watson, who will be playing her 14th Wimbledon main draw; No.218-ranked Francesca Jones, who reached her first tour-level quarterfinal on grass in Nottingham last week; and No.147-ranked Yuriko Lily Miyazaki, the winner of two ITF W75 tournaments this season.

One main draw wild card has yet to be distributed.

Wozniacki, Miyazaki, Watson and Raducanu have been removed from the qualifying entry list after receiving main draw wild cards. In addition to the withdrawals of Jodie Burrage and Mirjam Bjorklund since the initial qualifying entry list was released, the first six alternates have now got into qualifying: Harmony Tan, Anastasiia Sobolieva, Vitalia Diatchenko, Despina Papamichail, Lina Gjorcheska and Amanda Anisimova. The next five alternates are now Valentini Grammatikopoulou, Varvara Lepchenko, Selena Janicijevic, Anna-Lena Friedsam and Maddison Inglis.

The updated qualifying entry list can be viewed here.

Seven of the nine qualifying wild cards have also been announced. Three British teenagers who have both Top 30 junior rankings and Top 700 WTA rankings are among the recipients. Mika Stojsavljevic, 15, is currently the youngest player to have captured an ITF W35 title after claiming the Nottingham trophy in April; she will be joined by Hannah Klugman, 15, and Mingge Xu, 16. Stojsavljevic will be making her Grand Slam qualifying debut; Klugman and Xu both received Wimbledon qualifying wild cards in 2023.

Last year's junior champion, Clervie Ngounoue, has also been awarded a qualifying wild card. The 17-year-old American is ranked No.389, but already has two Top 100 wins under her belt, as well as a first ITF W35 title in Naples, Florida this year. Ngounoue made her tour-level debut as a wild card at last year's US Open.

Three more home players round out the initial tranche of qualifying wild cards: No.268-ranked Amarni Banks, 21; No.275-ranked Sonay Kartal, 22; and No.353-ranked Emily Appleton, 24, a qualifier in Nottingham last week.

The last two qualifying wild cards are reserved for players who have come through this week's wild card play-off tournament.