Former champions Andy Murray and Kim Clijsters were on Thursday both handed wild cards for the US Open.
Former world No 1 Murray, currently ranked 129 after a lengthy period battling a hip injury, narrowly missed direct entry.
The 33-year-old won the first of his three Grand Slam titles at the 2012 US Open, becoming the first British male to win a major since Fred Perry in 1936.
While Clijsters will be looking to repeat her magic from the 2009 US Open, when she famously won the women’s singles title as a wild card after returning from an initial retirement, during which she became a mother.
The three-time US Open champion (2005, 2009-10), who came out of a more than seven-year retirement earlier in 2020, will be playing the US Open for the first time since she stepped away from the game following the 2012 tournament.