The China Open draw published on Monday lists Roman Safiullin beside fourth seed Flavio Cobolli with two letters after his name: SE. Across the calendar, the WTA’s Ningbo Open reserves one special exempt place in its 28-player field. The designation solves a scheduling problem the tours create every week. A player who keeps winning at one tournament cannot be in another city for the next tournament’s qualifying.
What a special exempt is
Under the ATP Rulebook, a player can receive a special exempt into the singles main draw of the following week’s tournament when two conditions are met. He is still competing, in another qualified event, on the date that tournament’s qualifying begins. And his ranking at the entry deadline would not have made him a direct acceptance had he entered. A player still on court at 9 p.m. local time at the qualifying site is eligible only if he wins that match.
The second condition is the one most often missed. A special exempt replaces qualifying; it is not a bonus for a good week. Daniil Medvedev was into the Hangzhou semifinals when the Beijing draw was made, according to the ATP, but his ranking put him straight into the main draw as the third seed, so the rule never applied to him.
Which tournaments count
The rulebook limits which “qualified events” can feed a special exempt, by the level of the tournament the player wants to enter:
- Into a Masters 1000: another Masters 1000, an ATP 500 or a Grand Slam.
- Into an ATP 500: another ATP 500, a Masters 1000, a Grand Slam, or an ATP 250 in the same region as the 500 event.
- Into an ATP 250: any ATP 250, ATP 500, Masters 1000 or Grand Slam.
- Into a Challenger: an ATP Tour or Challenger event in the same geographic region, unless the region has no Challenger the following week, in which case any Challenger that week qualifies.
How many places there are
Masters 1000 and ATP 500 tournaments have one special exempt place. ATP 250 and Challenger events have two. When more players are eligible than there are places, they are selected by position on the most recent ATP rankings or by protected ranking, with two limits. A player who is already a direct acceptance on his protected ranking is not eligible, and a player who would have been a direct acceptance had he entered on his protected ranking cannot use it to set his place on the special exempt list.
What happens to an unused place
At ATP Tour events, a special exempt place that is not needed before qualifying begins goes to the next player on the original acceptance list. The rulebook notes that this can pull a player out of the qualifying draw before the first ball is struck, with an alternate taking his qualifying spot. It is one reason entry lists keep moving until the weekend before an event.
The Q/SE line in a draw
Main draws are often made before the candidate has played his Friday match. In that case the special exempt places are drawn like qualifier places and the lines are marked “Q/SE”. Once the result is known, either the special exempt player or, if he lost, the next direct acceptance is drawn at random into one of those lines.
One hour to decide
A player has until one hour after the match that makes him eligible to tell the ATP supervisor or player relations staff that he wants the place. Once he declares, he is committed. Turning it down afterwards brings the withdrawal or late-withdrawal penalties, and a player who accepts and fails to appear is treated as an entered player and penalised accordingly.
The timing cases
The rulebook’s case decisions draw the lines tightly. A player who wins a Thursday quarterfinal at an event with a Saturday final is not eligible, because he must be scheduled to play on the day qualifying begins. A match that runs past midnight on the eve of qualifying does not count as competing on qualifying day; the rule means starting or resuming a match as part of that day’s scheduled programme. A player without a singles ranking or protected ranking cannot receive a special exempt at all.
There is also a late-night exit. A player who is still on court at 9 p.m. the night before qualifying and then loses is eligible neither for the special exempt nor for qualifying sign-in. The tournament can still hand him a wild card if it knows the result before the qualifying draw and no special scheduling is needed.
Special exempt, lucky loser, qualifier
The three routes are easy to confuse. A qualifier earns a main-draw place by winning the qualifying competition. A lucky loser lost in qualifying and fills a vacancy. A special exempt never plays qualifying, because he was still winning somewhere else when it began.
The WTA version
The WTA uses special exempts too. Its rulebook lists special exempt among the ways a player can be accepted into a tournament, and the WTA’s published field for the 2026 Ningbo Open includes one special exempt place alongside six qualifiers and four wild cards. The WTA’s detailed eligibility criteria are set out in its own rulebook and are not covered here; the rules above are the ATP’s.
