The organizer of the WPT tournament in Miami gave himself a Wild Card — PPA strongly critical

47-year-old American Wayne Boich has been awarded one of two wild cards for the main draw of the Miami Open. As well as playing the tournament alongside 58th-ranked Mario Del Castillo, he is also the organizer of the first World Padel Tour tournament of the year. 

In a letter, the Padel Players Association (PPA) now strongly criticizes the World Padel Tour, where the distribution of Wild Cards is questioned. 

”The spirit of a Wild Card should be to promote the padel worldwide, allowing young local talents to promote themselves and measure themselves against the best players of the circuit, not that these Wild Cards are assigned to people who practice it in an amateur way and that additionally take away their place in the final draw to professional athletes,” the PPA-letter states. 

Wayne Boich is an amateur player born in 1975 in Ohio. He and Mario Del Castillo enter the main round, facing Javi Leal and Miguel Semmler. 

”Sincerely, we understand that this fact prostitutes and distorts the basic principles that should regulate and must be present in any activity that wants to be configured as a sport, such as equity, equal treatment, personal improvement, rewards based on personal performance, and countless others that we all know today in other sports and that unfortunately are not always present in our sport,” the letter says. 

The letter from the PPA responded to the letter sent by the World Padel Tour regarding ranking points in the new FIP tour. More about that letter will follow in a follow-up.