Venus Gets Paid in Taiwan; Swiss Top Seeds in St. Pete: WTA Previews

ST. PETERSBURG LADIES TROPHY
St. Petersburg, Russia; Surface: hard
ADHEREL
Seeds: Belinda Bencic, Roberta Vinci, Caroline Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, Kristina Mladenovic, Alize Cornet

Floaters: Annika Beck, Dominika Cibulkova, Yanina Wickmayer

Notes: No Top 10 talent in the field, but four from the Top 20, and two former world No. 1s…The Top 4 seeds receive opening-round byes…Potential tough starts for (1) Bencic vs. the German riser Beck, (3) Wozniacki vs. Cibulkova, and (2) Vinci vs. the resurgent Wickmayer…Wildcards were awarded to Russians Elena Vesnina and Natalia Vikhlyantseva, and Wozniacki…Pulling out of the field were Mona Barthel, Irina-Camelia Begu, Petra Cetkovska, Alexandra Dulgheru, and Karin Knapp…The streaking Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza are the top seeds in doubles…This is the first year for the event on the WTA tour, upgraded from a $50,000 ITF event in 2015.

TAIWAN OPEN
Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Surface: hard

Seeds: Venus Williams, Misaki Doi, Yulia Putintseva, Zarina Diyas, Zhang Saisai, Hsieh Su-Wei, Kurumi Nara, Alison Riske

Floaters: Donna Vekic, Kristyna Pliskova

Notes: Let’s play “Guess Who Got the Appearance Cash?” with Venus as the top seed, and the No. 62-ranked Doi seeded second…No Top 10 seeds in the field…Remove Venus, and this would essentially be an ITF-level field…Potentially tricky starts for (8) Riske vs. the Croat riser Vekic, and (2) Doi vs. the lesser Pliskova…Wildcards stayed in-country to Chinese-Taipei’s Hsu Ching-Wen, Lee Pei-Chi and Lee Ya-Hsuan…Withdrawing were Daniela Hantuchova, Romina Oprandi, Pauline Parmentier and Ajla Tomljanovic…2016 is the first edition of the tournament, not to be confused with the $125K Taipei Open.

 

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