By TERRY MADDAFORD
Swedish tennis players are ready to fire up again in the Auckland Open at Stanley St in January.
Yesterday's confirmation that in-form Thomas Johansson will play the Open gives the Swedes another strong hand. He will be joined in the main draw by countryman Andreas Vinciguerra, with Magnus Gustafsson
high on the list of players likely to play the qualifying tournament.
Magnus Norman, the winner of the 2000 Vodafone singles, will be playing in Sydney at the same time as the Auckland tournament.
Johansson won the $US775,000 ($1.8 million) Stockholm Open last week to improve his ATP ranking to 39, which might be enough to earn him a seeding as a top-eight player for the January 8-13 tournament.
Auckland Tennis chief executive Graham Pearce, speaking from Lisbon where he is attending ATP Tour meetings, said that with the 23 direct acceptances all ranked in the world's top 65, the standard at the Heineken-sponsored tournament promised to be as high as ever.
"This is a very good field. When you consider that players such as Karol Kucera, of Slovakia - who was ranked No 6 in 1998 - have to qualify, underlines how strong the field is," Pearce said.
Juan Balcells, who played here last season and will turn out for Spain in next week's Davis Cup tie against Australia, is only third on the list of players for the qualifying tournament.
That list also includes Richard Fromberg, of Australia, Spaniards Sergi Bruguera and Felix Mantilla, and popular American, Jeff Tarango.
World No 14 Franco Squillari, of Argentina, is favoured to take the top seeding ahead of Dominik Hrbaty, of Slovakia, who has played in three ATP finals this year, Mariano Puerta, of Argentina, American Jan-Michael Gambill and Marcelo Rios, of Chile.
The top 23 players from the world list gain direct entry, with the rest of the field comprising four from the qualifying tournament, two special exemptions and three wildcards, of which one has already gone to Goran Ivanisevic, of Croatia.
The top New Zealander, Mark Nielsen, is also likely to take a wildcard.
