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Bogdanovic hits out after Wimbledon rejection

Alex Bogdanovic has never reached the second round at Wimbledon © Getty Images

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Alex Bogdanovic believes the All England Club's decision not to award him a Wimbledon wildcard is an act of punishment after he decided not to play in Great Britain's next Davis Cup tie.

Britain face Turkey in July, but Bogdanovic does not feel he is in the kind of form to do justice for his country. He informed new coach Leon Smith of his decision, and the left-hander claims attitudes have changed towards him since that moment.

Despite being ranked 166 in the world, comfortably inside the 250 criteria, Bogdanovic has been overlooked for a Wimbledon wildcard at the benefit of world No. 254 Jamie Baker. The decision comes on the back of the LTA's decision to cut funding due to Bogdanovic's alleged decreasing work rate, something he strongly disputes.

"Leon Smith actually asked me in February, saying, 'I want you to play' (in the Davis Cup). I just said, 'I want to see how I'm playing at the moment and what my ranking is at the time, and I'm going to make a decision from there'.

"He said, 'Okay, we'll try to give you some wildcards to help you out'. When I told him in Nottingham (last week) that I won't be playing for this tie because I need to get my ranking up, he was obviously disappointed with that.

"He said I wasn't going to get pretty much any wildcards, that even though he doesn't make the decision for the All England Club, that's the All England Club. I said, 'That's fine'."

Switching focus to the cut in his funding, Bogdanovic clearly had issue with the LTA's reason for their decision.

"We had a meeting and (player director) Steven Martens basically said the reason for that is I wasn't working hard enough throughout the whole year.

"I thought that was just so disrespectful because that's very untrue. He said my intensity wasn't good enough and it was something that hurt me a lot, because I'm out there trying to give it my best shot to break the top 100 for the last eight years.

"If it was as easy as that, everyone would be top 100, as good as Andy Murray is. But it's not. He just said, 'You're 25 and you should have been in the top 100'."

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