CHINA'S two-time Grand Slam doubles champion Zheng Jie and Slovakia's World No 15 Dominika Cibulkova could add to the star-list of this month's WTA Tour BMW Malaysian Open.
Tournament organiser Carbon Worldwide has approached both players and according to sources, they are interested to make their debuts in the tournament.
Czech Republic's World No 28 Lucie Safarova, last year's finalist, is also among the players short-listed to take up one of the four available wild card slots
"We have approached six players for the wild cards and so far, only Venus Williams has accepted one," said a source.
The event, at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian and Country Resort, is on Feb 27-March 4. France's World No 9 Marion Bartoli and China's Peng Shuai are the top two seeds.
Others in the list are Croatia's World No 55 Petra Martic, Britain's Anne Keothavong (73), Greece's Eleni Danilidou (86) and Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn (93).
Malaysia will not be represented in the main draw once again.
The Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM) will hold a trial to pick two players for the qualifying.
CONFIRMED ENTRIES
1 Marion Bartoli (Fra), 2 Peng Shuai (Chn), 3 Ayumi Morita (Jpn), 4 Petra Martic (Cro), 5 Jelena Dokic (Aus), 6 Anne Keothavong (Bri), 7 Eleni Danilidou (Gre), 8 Bojana Jo vanovski (Srb), 9 Tamarine Tansugarn (Tha), 10 Irina Bre mond (Fra), 11 Venus Williams (USA), 12 Aleksandra Woz niak (Can), 13 Sania Mirza (Ind), 14 Akgul Amanmuradova (Uzb), 15 Misaki Doi (Jpn), 16 Casey Dellacqua (Aus), 17 Erika Sema (Jpn), 18 Laura Robson (Bri), 19 Caroline Robson (Bri), 20 Nina Bratchikova (Rus), 21 Yvonne Meusburger (Aut), 22 Kristina Mladenovic (Fra), 23 Kurumi Nara (Jpn), 24 Chang Kai-Chen (Tai). -NST
