Tennis: Classic wildcard goes to top-ranked Stephens

By TERRY MADDAFORD

New Zealand's highest-ranked woman on the WTA Tour, Shelley Stephens, has been given a wildcard into next month's international classic.

There had been conjecture over whether Stephens or 15-year-old Marina Erakovic would get the second wildcard into the main draw of the January 5-10 ASB Classic.

Tournament director Richard Palmer was spared having to make that decision when Erakovic, her coach and parents decided she should stay overseas and play junior tournaments in the US and Mexico.

Erakovic is now ranked 10th on the world junior doubles list and 43rd in singles.

Stephens, ranked 315 on the WTA tour - down from a career-high of 249 - joined 17-year-old Eden Marama, the other New Zealander to be given a main draw wildcard.

Stephens has shown good doubles form on the circuit this year, winning three US$10,000 tournaments and making the final of another - all with different partners.

In singles, she beat former world top-50 player Lilia Osterloh in a US$25,000 tournament in Italy.

In this year's Classic, Stephens lost in the first round to American Laura Granville.

Paris-based Marama reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open junior singles this year and the semifinals of the doubles.

She and her sister, 19-year-old Paula, won five International Tennis Federation doubles titles in 2003.

Eden won two US$10,000 singles titles.

Paula is one of four New Zealanders given wildcards into this weekend's qualifying tournament.

She will be joined by Leanne Baker, who beat Stephens in the final of this month's New Zealand Residential Championships - Ilke Gers and Dianne Hollands, originally from Otago but now at the University of Arizona.

The remaining main draw wildcard for the men's January 12-17 Heineken Open has gone, as expected, to US-based Simon Rea.

It is Rea's second chance to play in the main draw.

This year, he was beaten in straight sets by eventual finalist Dominik Hrbaty.

"I'm grateful to Auckland Tennis and hopefully I can handle the atmosphere and pressure on centre court this time," said Rea, 21, who is in his final year of a scholarship at the University of Tennessee.

"I've been working hard, training on court four to five hours a day since the residentials."

The four New Zealanders to play in the Heineken Open qualifying on January 10 and 11 will be Mark Nielsen, GD Jones, Adam Thompson and Dan King-Turner, who lost to James Shortall in a third-set tiebreaker at the residentials.

Shortall, who beat Rea in the semifinals of those championships, has opted out of the Open to concentrate on his work with Telecom.

But he might be available for Davis Cup selection.