[Trotoleterm]

IMO, champions of a Slam have earned the right to special consideration- even if they know they're going to get wiped out in the first round- that's their call. Qualification rounds are meant to prove that you belong. IMO champions have already proven that they belong, and have earned the respect of being placed in the main draw. I'm just into honoring our champions.

And as for the example of Borg- HEY, they gave a singles WC to Navratilova not that long ago- and she had barely played any singles at that point, albeit she had played many doubles matches. Borg has gotten some decent seniors tournament results- and IMO is a PERFECT example of having MORE than earned the right (and is still "young" enough, relatively speaking) to a WC at Roland Garros and Wimbledon- he won them enough freakin' times. In any case, you could certainly otherwise place an age limit on Wild Cards for former champions- which I believe golf has done- albeit, yes, the age limit could be younger than for golf.

AND I promise to reconsider this if there are suddenly mobs of former champs demanding to play Slams- albeit this has never happened in the history of tennis.

Back in the day, BTW, for example, Wimbledon gave singles Wild Cards in the 90's to the likes of Ros Nideffer, Kathy Rinaldi, Pam Shriver, Gigi Fernadez, Lori McNeil and Kathy Jordan- all of whom made it to the SF round in singles at Wimbledon ONE time only, except for Pam, who made three Wimbledon singles Semifinals (and obviously some of whom won multiple doubles Wimbledon titles)- but none of whom ever made a Wimbledon singles final, much less won the thing. So, there IS a precedent for Slams demonstrating an Old-Fart policy of honoring players with former excellent records at a given Slam with a Wild Card. Therefore, I don't think that it's too much to ask to do the same for former champions.

P.S. Roger didn't whiff.