The two players at either end of the draw are ready to back up their impressive credentials on Tuesday, in what is sure to be an exciting first few hours on centre court.
Top seeded Russian Elena Dementieva enters the tournament ranked 4th in the world. She is the reigning Olympic singles champion and in Grand Slam events has reached the quarterfinals or better nine times in her career. In just over ten years as a professional she has earned nearly US$11 million dollars and won 11 titles.
Her season in 2008 was a steady climb up the top 10, after she finished outside it in 2007 for the first time since 2002. As well as her peerless display in Beijing, she finished in the fourth round in Melbourne, the quarters at Roland Garros and the semis at both Wimbledon and Flushing Meadow.
She is due on centre court immediately after the opening match. That first clash will be between second seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and a qualifier the Danish star should put away easily, Alberta Brianti of Italy. It's best not to assume too much too early about the outcome, of course, but with a ranking difference of 160 places a loss for Wozniacki would be a massive upset.
She is ranked 12th in the world, with three WTA titles and a lower tier win in her hometown of Odense under her belt in 2008, while Brianti is at 172 with no titles, but anyone who watched the Italian's demolition of Austrian Yvonne Meusburger in the final round of qualifying will recognise the danger of any complacency on Wozniacki's part.
By the end of two quick sets the fourth qualifying seed looked ragged with frustration at her inability to find a single square metre of court that Brianti wasn't waiting in already.
Brianti has three rounds of tough tennis on the Auckland surface under her belt, she appears to be in a rich vein of form, and the ASB Tennis Centre has a growing reputation as a graveyard for favourites to boot. If the higher-ranked Dane doesn't fire right off the bat she may find herself behind and struggling to match the Italian girl's intensity.
Following the Wozniacki-Brianti match, New Zealander Marina Erakovic will play Nuria Llagostera Vives of Spain. Erakovic will be hoping for a better result against the Spanish girl than she got on Monday night in the doubles.
Pairing with American Jill Craybas, Erakovic got smoked in straight sets by Llagostera Vives and her Spanish partner Aranxta Parra Santonja.
In other Tuesday matches eighth seed Carla Suarez Navarro will meet Frenchwoman Nathalie Dechy, wild card Mirjana Lucic of Croatia will take on Anne Keothavong of Great Britain, German qualifier Kristina Barrois will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, Japanese qualifier Ayumi Morita will play Marta Domachowska of Poland, while another qualifier from Japan, Aiko Nakamura, comes up against Russian Elena Vesnina.
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