The player acceptance lists for the first week of the US$75,000 ASB Pro Circuit tennis Futures have been released for the North Harbour event with a wide variety of nations represented in both the men’s and women’s entries.
The first week of the three week circuit will be held at the Albany Tennis Centre, North Harbour 9-15 March where the men’s professional ITF (International Tennis Federation) tournament worth US$15,000 and the women’s tournament US$10,000 will take place followed the next week at Hamilton and the final week at Wellington
The women’s event at week one has a 18 direct entries where there are 13 nations represented, although New Zealand has no players in the initial acceptance list. The likes of Aucklanders Kairangi Vano and Shona Lee along with Di Hollands, all representatives in the New Zealand Fed Cup team which lost to Australia in the final of the Asia/Pacific competition will all require one of the four main draw wildcards.
In the past Vano has made the final at a New Zealand event with Hollands a previous semifinalist at Hamilton.
In the men’s draw there are ten different countries in the direct entries with Kiwi Davis Cup team members Rubin Statham at 418 in the world, Dan King-Turner (469) and GD Jones ranked at 655 all making the main draw cut.
Outside of the main draw and hoping for a wildcard or to win through qualifying are the likes of Davis Cup team member Adam Thompson, Wairarapa’s Marcus Daniell, Oliver Statham, North Harbour’s Matt Simpson and Wellington’s Finn Tearney. All of whom have ATP international rankings.
The leading man is Australian Miles Armstrong with a ranking of 345 with countryman Adam Feeney the likely second seed at 371. There is a strong contingent of players from Europe with Croatian, Italians and Russians represented along with players from Korea, China and Japan as well as Canada and the United States, many of whom are the future talent of the tennis world.
In the women’s field the top ranked players is Marinne Giraud who is at a current career-high ranking of 239 in the world and talented Australian player, Sophie Ferguson next who has played in seven Grand Slam main draws and beaten numerous top-100 players as well as having a win over top-30 ranked player Ai Sugiyama at the Gold Coast WTA event.
The ranking cutoff for the women’s event at North Harobur is a high 398 with a variety of Asian nations as well as European tennis hotspots represented in the form of players from France, Italy, Netherlands, and Poland.
Some of the players who have competed in Futures tournaments in New Zealand and gone on to make an impact in world tennis include, Swede Joachim Johansson who played in 2001 (Tauranga and Christchurch events) went on to reach a career-high ATP ranking of No9 in 2005.
Others to have gained significant rankings after their exploits in the Futures here are Israel’s Harel Levy (highest rank of 30), Switzerland’s Yves Allegro (71), Czech, Ivo Minar (64) and many of the world’s top-50 doubles players.
In the women’s rankings Magdelina Rybarikova from Slovakia currently ranked at 47 along with Kiwi Marina Erakovic, 57th and Australian teenager Jessica Moore at 139 have all played in Futures events in New Zealand in recent years.
The first of the ASB Pro Circuit events will be preceded by the Davis Cup tie between New Zealand and Malaysia 6-8 March in the indoor courts at Albany Tennis Park, North Harbour.
www.asbprocircuit.co.nz
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