Kim Clijsters and Andy Murray have been granted wildcards into next week’s Indian Wells Masters.
Organisers for the California event announced the news on Thursday, sending fans into a frenzy.
Clijsters, 38, and Murray, 34, are both grand slam champions who have struggled in recent years.
Belgian star Clijsters made her latest return to the sport this week, suffering defeat at the Chicago Fall Classic.
Clijsters, who accepted a wild card into the hardcourt event, was highly competitive in her first match of the season but misfired at key moments in a 6-3 5-7 6-3 loss to Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei.
The results means the four-time grand slam champion remains without a win in four events since her comeback to the WTA Tour last year.
Clijsters was returning to action for her first match on tour since a first-round loss at last year’s US Open – her initial comeback interrupted by knee surgery in October and when she got Covid-19 this January.
She made a quick start against Hsieh as she raced out to a 3-0 lead but dropped the next eight games to go behind.
But Clijsters came back from a break down to force a third set where Hsieh proved the steadier of the two in a match that lasted two hours and 18 minutes.
“Some good things, some bad things, and inconsistency,” Clijsters said.
“But I think for me the most important thing is that, what I talked with my coach and my trainer about, my fitness coach, was physically being able to get through these matches without big concerns.
“That was the main goal.”
