Teen star given last wildcard spot

With the men’s line up for January’s ASB Classic already set to be one of the best in recent years, tournament director Karl Budge has looked to the future.

Wu Yibing, the 18-year-old from China, who is No 1 ranked junior in the world, has been given a main draw wildcard for the tournament.

He has an adult ranking of 302 but he won the Junior US Open this year and made the semifinals at the Australian Open.

Yibing also won a challenger tournament this year, so is showing the potential to make transition out of juniors, to play against men.

Whether he gets to play on centre court at the Classic could depend on who he’s drawn against or which players are in Auckland by Monday.

There will be more interest in Juan Martin del Potro, Jack Sock, John Isner, David Ferrer, Roberto Bautista Agut, Denis Shapovalov, Sam Querrey and the Kiwi guys in the doubles than Yibing, but Budge feels bringing him to New Zealand is a worthwhile move.

‘‘When we’ve got a field as strong as we have for 2018, we start looking at who we want to lead the tournament in 2020, 2021,’’ Budge said. ‘‘We do that by being able to attract these youngsters on their way up and hope that when they’re at the top echelon of tennis we’ve got that good relationship.’’

Michael Venus has already been confirmed for one of the other main draw wildcards, while Budge says he’ll keep the remaining one up his sleeve until the last moment.

The week preceding the men’s Classic Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych are playing in Doha, while in Brisbane there are Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Grigor Dimitrov, Nick Kyrgios and Milos Raonic all competing.

If one of these players loses early and feel they’d like some more matches before the Australian Open (the week after the Classic) Budge is ready to pounce.