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2018 USTA Roland Garros Wild Card Challenge has kicked off last week and it is a four-week streak of clay tournaments ($60,000 and $80,000 ITF events, Challengers and ATP tournaments) that would determine one American player from the men's and women's Tour who gets the main draw wild card for the second Grand Slam event of the season in Paris. This is the perfect opportunity for the players ranked outside the Top 100 (those who earn direct entrance to the main draw are not in contention for the Wild Card Challenge) to book their place in Paris and have a chance to play for big points and prize money.
There are 17 clay court tournaments in a swing of four weeks (8 ATP events and 9 Challengers) and the Americans were mostly present in Houston last week, competing at the ATP 250 event. The eventual winner of the Wild Card Challenge will be the one who manages to collect the most points in two best weeks and an early leader is Denis Kudla, qualifying for the main draw and beating Fernando Verdasco before he fell to Ivo Karlovic in round two. Bjorn Fratangelo is second and the youngster Stefan Kozlov stands in third, as they move to Sarasota Challenger in order to earn more points this week.
The situation in the women's Challenge is very simple and it contains four USTA Pro Circuit events on Har-Tru clay, and the wild card will go to a player who accumulates the most points in two different weeks. The first stop was at Indian Harbour Beach and the 19-year-old Carlone Dolehide went all the way to earn 80 points and take the lead in the standings ahead of Taylor Townsend and Sophie Chang. Dolehide will not play in Dothan this week and that opens the door for Townsand and Chang to get closer to her with a good result. The Wild Card Challenge leaders after the opening week:
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