Wimbledon invites Sharapova to qualifier

Maria Sharapova will not request one of the eight wild-card invitations to Wimbledon and instead will attempt to qualify her way into the Grand Slam event. She has, however, received an invitation to the traditional Wimbledon warm-up tournament in Birmingham, England. Grand Slam officials traditionally extend wild card invitations to well-known players who have not met the qualifying requirements for reasons such as injury. Earlier this week, however, French Open officials cited Sharapova’s 15-month doping ban as a reason she would not be given a wild card to Roland Garros, either for the main tournament or for qualifying.