Tennis: Hard road to main draw

There are no free rides into Auckland's international women's tournament as many of the better performers who have played here in the past have found out.

ASB Classic director Richard Palmer is blown away by the quality of his main draw field - and with the 32-player draw for the qualifying tournament.

Included in the draw for qualifying starting tomorrow week at the ASB Bank Tennis Centre are two former Classic singles winners, two runners-up and three who have won the doubles title. "All the players we have firm entries from are ranked in the world's top 180 which is as strong or stronger than we have had before," said Palmer.

The 26 ranked players will be joined by four New Zealanders as wildcards and two from tournaments overseas who were guaranteed places in the qualifying draw.

Anne Kremer (Luxembourg) and Meilen Tu (US), singles champions in 2000 and 2001, now ranked 165 and 121 respectively, will have to win their three qualifying matches to reach the main draw.

Tatiana Panova (Russia) and Ashley Harkleroad (US) fell at the last hurdle in earlier attempts and are back to take the long road this time.

Jelena Kostanic (Croatia) and Mervana Jugic-Salkic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) who won the doubles in 2005 and Abigail Spears (US) who shared the doubles title in 2003, will return to attempt to qualify in singles.

Qualifying has often rewarded players in the past.

In successive years from 1995-97 Nicole Bradtke (Australia), Sandra Cacic (US) and Marion Maruska (Austria) won the Classic, the latter pair after coming through qualifying and Bradtke as a special exempt.

At the other end of the list, top seeds have not had a happy time in Auckland. This year's top seed, Nadia Petrova, is aware of that and the pressure the seeds can be under at the first tournament of the year.

"There is some pressure on the top seed," said Petrova yesterday. "There is always the chance you will be drawn against a qualifier who has had the advantage of having played three matches."

Should Petrova be drawn against one of the four qualifiers, she will not play her first round match until the second day proper (January 3) as last round qualifying matches are played on January 2 as part of the first day's action.

With the gold/silver exempt unlikely to be claimed, Kristina Brandi is likely to be promoted to the main draw.

Palmer must also hand out one main draw wildcard following Marina Erakovic's enforced withdrawal. That could go to highly rated junior Victoria Azarenka.

The main draw will be made on December 31.

Players in the qualifying tournament (in ranking order):

* Kristina Brandi, Tatiana Panova, Jelena Kostanic, Severine Bremond, Martina Muller, Shenay Perry, Camille Pin, Galina Voskoboeva, Meilen Tu, Mariya Koryttseva, Tzipora Obziler, Barbora Strycova, Marie-Eve Pelletier, Victoria Azarenka, Yvonne Meusburger, Clarisa Fernandez, Se-Wei Hsieh, Abigail Spears, Natalie Grandin, Anne Kremer, Aleksandra Wozniak, Claudine Schaul, Ryoko Fuda, Kathrin Woerle, Mervana Jugic-Salkic.

* They will be joined by four wildcards (New Zealanders) and two direct entries who were guaranteed places after winning US$25,000 tournaments this year.