Lindsay Davenport, coming off the title in Bali, will have an opportunity to re-take the No. 1 ranking from
Maria Sharapova this week in Beijing, but both players will have to deal with two wildcards not often seen in lower-tier tournaments -- Venus and
Serena Williams.
From there the field quality falls off with fellow seeds
Alicia Molik,
Jelena Jankovic,
Tatiana Golovin, and
Flavia Pennetta.
The top four seeds receive byes, but there remain a few opening-round matches of note in (7) Golovin vs.
Shinobu Asagoe, (6) Jankovic vs. China's
Jie Zheng, and an all-Japanese in
Akiko Morigami vs. (WC)
Ai Sugiyama.
In last year's final the top-seeded Serena came from a set down to defeat No. 2 seed
Svetlana Kuznetsova 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.
