Wild Card

In tennis tournaments you often hear that someone has been given a 'wild card' entry. Sometimes its an ageing ex-champ, sometimes its an up-and coming star of the future. But they are always a tennis player of some kind. That doesn't seem terribly wild to me.

I see a future where every tournament has half a dozen 'really wild cards', and you don't know who it's going to be until they walk out on court. Of course it would be unusual for any of them to get past round 1, but imagine the excitement all the same. It's Wimbledon, early summer, strawberries etc, Roger Federer is warming up with a coach, impatiently doing a few stretches and a few practice serves, when the spotlight falls on the mouth of the tunnel, and out walks ... Martha Stewart. Or ... Prince Edward. Or ... Lindsay Lohan, complete with detention bracelet on her ankle. Or Elton John, or Alice Cooper, or Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump. Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez. Supermodel Giselle Bundchen.

For the French Open mixed doubles, we could have those wily clay court specialists, Yves Saint Laurent and Juliette Binoche. Or perhaps the doubles should be pro-am. Australia would be represented by that classic good-cop/bad-cop combo, Samantha Stosur and Kyle Sandilands.