THEY have become the most contentious of sporting invitations. The determination of who should or should not receive a wild card into tournaments and the continued flagrant abuses of the system mean that an overhaul of the whole practice is long overdue.

Andy Murray and his camp are known to be more than a little peeved not to have received what amounts to a free pass into the US Open next week, and given that he had been granted such access to two previous American tournaments, including the coveted Masters Series event in Cincinnati last week, they have a point.

His prodigious rise up the Indesit ATP rankings, to the extent to which the 18-year-old Scot was prime-time on US television against Marat Safin in Cincinnati, underscores the progress that the 2004 junior champion here has made.

There is a school of thought that the All England Club ought to have flexed its influence a bit more with its friends at the USTA and pointed out that James Blake, who had played at Wimbledon only twice before this year and never been past the second round, was given a wild card into its main draw. Should not backs have been scratched? Instead, the “wild card” among the eight wild cards for the US Open was Mark Philippoussis, the 1998 runner-up from Australia, and the rest are Americans, including Blake and Brian Baker and Rajeev Ram, two untested youngsters whom Murray has beaten in the past month.

Murray had to make do with knowing that his ranking had improved sufficiently to guarantee a place in qualifying — he won his second-round match 6-3, 6-2 against Paolo Lorenzi, of Italy, and is within one victory of a main-draw berth — because it did not fit the reasoned criteria for a spot in the main draw. The problem is that no one knows what the criteria for wild cards is from one week to the next and too much is left to wheeling and dealing behind closed doors.

Will Baker and Ram enhance the quality of the championship next week by winning at least one round, a feat that was beyond the British wild cards at Wimbledon, save for Murray and David Sherwood? It got to the stage where, two years ago and wary of the embarrassment that the results of British players caused, the LTA chose to stiffen the basis for a wild card to be awarded and implemented a play-off, though it, too, has appeared to be a bit of a lottery.

At the same time, the French and Australians decided to join forces in a quid pro quo arrangement by which two wild cards into both the men’s and women’s event at each other’s grand-slam tournaments were reserved for players whose rankings did not measure up. Is that fair and equitable and if it happens at the French and Australian Opens, why not at Wimbledon and the US Open? Lower down the scale, there is the increasing problem — first spotlighted in The Times in May — of tournament directors happy to award wild cards to players whose families are wealthy or desperate enough to pay for their offspring to guarantee a match. Often, that is all it guarantees and there are too many examples of players (and not only of British players) losing 6-0, 6-0 but earning one priceless ATP ranking point, a means of winning by losing. That loophole must be closed.

Murray just has to soldier on, as the other remaining Britons, Jonathan Marray and Arvind Parmar, both lost in straight sets in the second round of qualifying last night. His advance to the last round of qualifying was further convincing proof of his growing maturity. With every element of his game under increasing scrutiny — top-level players are dropping by the side of his court to keep in touch with his progress — the spotlight intensifies.