I agree with Laura and Tessa, Nick will be representing the entire Caribbean and he deserves his wildcard spot. I wish him the best of luck and i support him fully. I know its a tricky situation of whether he should be playing in such a big tournament, but it would be one of his few chances to play alongside such quality competition, which will improve his game so that he won't even need a wildcard in the future. GO NICK!!!

Well done Shane! I agree with with both of you'll and this will definately be giving him encouragement to play with the better guys. With him playing for Bermuda (and the Caribbean) we fully support him and with our continuous encouragement he will be up at the top with them and be playing at his best and would not need the wildcards for extra points but he will be getting them on his own. YOU GO GET THEM NICK!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LUCK!!!!

I'd chop him up, the only way he deserves to be in the tournament is if he got thru the quailifying like everybody else, fairs fair. And if you guys get some money together I'll come down and give him a good spanking for ya.

Well considering the Masters doesn't have a qualifying event that wouldn't be possible now would it?

maybe he could get another wild card, you guys seem to just give em away. Who did he have to scrap past to earn it?

Even worse, I bet the guy ranked 32nd is real happy. Surely you can understand that he deserves it a lot more than Kim.

Yeah, i agree. If Kyme didn't get the wildcard, Peter Barker would have gotten in, since they normally use the end-of-year (JAN 05) rankings to determine the qualifiers.

I agree with the last post. It does seem a bit unfair that Peter Barker loses out. The thing is Nick cannot be blamed he did not ask for the wildcard, it was probably part of the deal when they agreed to host the tournament there. All that should happen in this case is that a wildcard should not get any points awarded if they lose first round then they do not have a false PSA ranking for a year until those points drop off again. I believe this happened last year at the Cathay Pacific when Wai Hang Wong got a wildcard to play Peter Nicol 1st rd lost and found himself in the top 100 which gave him an unfair step up. So simple solution keep wildcard so that encourages people to put on tournaments, but no points advantage gained by losing in 1st round.

Yes it was part of the deal when we signed on to have the Masters here. And Nick had to play in the National Championships and beat James Stout (another pro) in order to get the widcard spot.

James is not a very good squash player, and that's a fact.

You people really don't like Bermudians now do you?

I think that this guy has a ligitimate argument here. There's nothing wrong with giving a local player a wild card for a major tournament played in his country. In the past it's done some players a lot of good actually (Ahmed Barada, Alahram '96). But the thing is that you also should be deserving of your wildcard. Barada took his wildcard and reached the final of the tournament that year only to be beaten by the great Jansher Khan and during the course of the following years he became as highly ranked as number 2 in the world. It doesn't make any sense to give a player huge ranking points for one tournament a year and he just goofs off for the rest of the year, if anything he should be working his ass off all year trying to back up his reputation, but again who else is there in Bermuda worthy enough to represent them, surely they're not going to give the wild card of their only event to an english, egyptian, french or aussie. These guys complaining are obviously english..........with all the crying and whining, sour grapes as usual. Don't hate guys.

As usual everyone jumps down everybodys throat. Apply some commonsense to the argument. I am sure in fact I know Nick works as hard as most of the working pro's out there. This argument has nothing to do with him it is the system that needs looking at. That is not to allow easy routes for players from wherever elevating themselves unfairly above their station by being given what amounts to a sweetener for promoters from the PSA. I am sure there must be other ways the PSA can help elevate an event even more for the promoters than giving out Wildcards into main draws.
Similar things happen with smaller PSA events whereby the qualifying draw will have 8 of the 16 spaces allocated to Locals. These locals do not have to be a member of the PSA but are denying a fully paid up PSA member a space in a tournament, which may be the only one he has been able to get into because of his lower ranking. I see why they do these things but it does not make it right!!!!

It's very rare that a local takes up a qualifying spot of a psa pro that wanted in the qualifying. And you don't get ranking points for losing in qualifying.

You're assuming Nick Kyme works as hard as the top players. I don't know how fair of an assumption that is. I'd be willing to bet he doesn't work as hard.

I watched Nick play in a tournament here last year. He's a pretty fit guy with horrible hands. Lost in the qualifying to a local player here 3-1.

I suggest you check your facts Mr Lee. Atlanta Open in May has 1 Wildcard and 4 locals in the Qualifying,Losone Open 1 Wildcard main draw and 4 local spots. In fact every tournament coming up has Wildcards and locals. The New Zealand circuit has 8 local spots out of 16 qualifiers. When you are paying over £300 per year to be a member of the PSA then you become rather frustrated not to be able to even get a chance to play in the qualifying so you struggle to get your ranking higher. Also you are wrong about points not awarded for Qualification rounds. Main Draw 16 with 16 draw for Qualifiers 1st rd losers 1/5th of points awarded to Main draw 1st rd losers. 2nd rd losers 3/5ths of points awarded to Main draw 1st rd losers.

this 'bloke' should never have been included in such a prestigious draw.
Anyone self respecting pro of that ranking is trying to cut their teeth in Europe and not mincing about the american 'circuit'.

for all of you complaining, have you ever been to a tournament to see whats going on? Full gallery for locals an wild card (local) and just a few people watching the first match of No 1 seed ! Wild card to a local is good for the promoter who pays lots of money sometimes ,so it´s good for squash.