Marion's entry into Ponte Vedra Beach by virtue of a wildcard into the qualifying event, has naturally generated quite a bit of discussion over the past few days; Both here, and on other tennis discussion forums.

Today's tournament preview on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour website contains a small helpful explanation on how this Qualifying event wildcard came about. They explain,

'Marion Bartoli.. missed the official entry deadline but has decided to play qualifying to gain extra match practice after an early exit in Miami. As the world No.13, the Frenchwoman could have been the No.3 seed.'

I had intended to drop a line to tournament director John Arrix just to seek some clarification on the matter. This response from the tour is helpful and sheds some light on things now.

edit 04/06/09