Defending champion Jelena Dokic of Australia and Indian sensation Sania Mirza will grace the BMW Malaysia Open tennis tournament at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian and Country Club from Feb 27-March 4.
Young Japanese star Ayumi Morita and 20-year-old Serbian ace Bojana Jovanovski have also confirmed participation.
It will be a sweet homecoming for world No. 64 Dokic as her win here last year marked her first Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) title since June 2002.
With Asia’s No. 2 Peng Shuai also confirmed, the Malaysia Open will see two other Asian stars – 26-year-old Sania and 22-year-old Ayumi – in the mix.
Sania, who withdrew at the last minute last year, is on the road to recovery after a knee injury forced her to stop playing after the US Open in August.
At the on-going Australian Open, Sania was defeated by Tsvetana Pironkova in the first round.
World No. 52 Ayumi, meanwhile, is known for her strong and consistent two-handed groundstrokes and is highly regarded as a mentally tough youngster.
The Japanese No. 1 enjoyed good outings at the last two editions here – losing to eventual winner Alisa Kleybanova in the semi-final in the inaugural Open and going down to Jarmila Groth in a thrilling quarter-final match last year.
World No. 90 Jovanovski will be returning to Kuala Lumpur for the third consecutive year, having made her WTA Tour debut at the Malaysia Open in 2010. She lost to Dokic in the quarter-finals last year.
The addition of these four players – Dokic, Sania, Ayumi and Jovanovski – will surely add more glamour to the tournament.
Former world No. 1 Venus Williams, French queen Marion Bartoli and China’s Peng Shuai had announced their participation earlier. - the Star
