Kiwi duo battle for spots at Olympics

Rubin Statham and Paige Hourigan are hoping to compete for New Zealand at this year’s Olympics, but face hurdles to pick up the wildcards they could be entitled to have.

Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell are expected to go to the Games in the men’s doubles.

Under the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) rules for the Tokyo Games, there are singles wildcard spots available for the highest ranked player from Oceania, if that player is inside the top 300 on June 7.

Statham, 33, picked up a hip injury in 2019 and his onlymatch last year was for New Zealand in the Davis Cup win over Venezuela inmarch.

However, he has a protected ranking of 280, putting him inside the cut off. Protected rankings allow players who have suffered long-term injuries not to have to start without any ranking when they return to playing.

‘‘They normally have one spot for the top ranked Oceania player and we’re looking into if they’ll accept my protected ranking,’’ Statham said.

Hourigan is ranked 458 in the world, so her first task is to get into the top 300 and last week she won aworld Tennis Tour tournament in Egypt, which should push her up to around 432 when the rankings are next calculated.

However, Tennis NZ high performance director Christophe Lambert says there are a number of hurdles to overcome to get them to the Olympics.

They also need to be approved by the New Zealand Olympic Committee to go, even if the ITF accept them.