Main draw wildcard for Sinja Kraus - hammer line-up for the qualifiers

Up-and-coming local hero Sinja Kraus receives the last main draw wildcard for the Upper Austria Ladies Linz! "I'm lost for words! I'm really happy to be part of it. It's the first year as a 500 tournament and there are so many great players taking part," said the 21-year-old Viennese, who played a W75 ITF tournament in Porto on Saturday and was only beaten in the semi-finals by Maja Chwalinska from Poland after a tough battle (7:6, 4:6, 3:6). "I had just come off the court and was looking hopefully at my mobile phone when I got the great news from Sandra Reichel. I first had to realise it," reported Kraus. "That's amazing!"

Tournament director Sandra Reichel attests to the Austrian rising star's "great development": "The wildcard for Linz is a reward and certainly an incentive for her future career. I'm always happy when we can be a platform for Austrian women's tennis with our tournament." Kraus is currently ranked 200th in the world rankings. "I want to break into the top 150 this year and then into the top 100 next year to make it into the main draw of the Grand Slam tournaments." In the absence of Julia Grabher (WTA 105), who is not yet match fit again after her wrist injury, Kraus is the number one from an Austrian perspective. Kraus will find out who her opponent in Linz will be on Sunday (tomorrow), when the draw for the WTA 500 event takes place in the international ambience of the LINZ AG harbour logistics park at 1 pm.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Arabella Koller (Salzburg), the winner of the "Young Ladies Wildcard Challenge", and teenager Tamara Kostic from Vienna are flying the Austrian flag in the qualifying grid. Kostic, who will celebrate her 18th birthday on Monday, could give herself the best present of all with a surprise win.

The high quality of the main draw, which includes top stars Angelique Kerber (Germany), Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia), Dayana Yastremska (Ukraine) and Camila Giorgi (Italy), ensures that the qualifying round for the tennis classic in Upper Austria, which has been promoted to a WTA 500 event, is once again packed with stars. Tournament director Sandra Reichel is delighted: "It's almost unbelievable how many great players have to go through qualifying this year to make it into the main draw."

The qualifiers are led by world number 67 Greet Minnen from Belgium. US-American Alycia Parks, winner of the WTA event in Lyon 2023, was only recently stopped in round three of the Australian Open by compatriot and former Linz winner Coco Gauff. Two of last year's quarter-finalists from Linz are also taking part: 29-year-old German Anna-Lena Friedsam and Denmark's young star Clara Tauson. Tennis fans can also look forward to seeing Tamara Korpatsch from Hamburg, who won her first WTA tournament in Cluj in the autumn, on the big "Opening Day". Other established names include Dortmund's Jule Niemeier, a quarter-finalist at Wimbledon 2022, and Jaqueline Cristian, who even reached the final at Upper Austria Linz in 2021.

The qualifying competition will begin at 10 a.m. on the dot, and the public will be admitted to the Design Centre Linz from 9.30 a.m. for the "Opening Day".