Serena & Entire Top 20 In Toronto Field
TORONTO, Canada - The entire Top 24 plus a legendary player trying to work her way back up the rankings will descend on Toronto this week for the prestigious $2,050,000 Rogers Cup, held at the Rexall Centre in Toronto.
World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki leads the field as the top seed, and will look to get back on track after early losses at Roland Garros and Wimbledon - as well as at her only tournament since the grass court season in Bastad, where she had to retire from her second round match due to a right shoulder strain. One year ago Wozniacki went all the way to the title here and after a bye begins her defense against either Yanina Wickmayer or Roberta Vinci.
World No.2 Kim Clijsters has only played two tournaments in the last four months due to a series of injuries (shoulder, wrist, ankle) but is back on the courts and ready to make her first appearance of the summer in Toronto. Like Wozniacki, Clijsters has also raised the trophy here before, winning it in 2005. Also the recipient of a first round bye, she kicks off with a qualifier.
Vera Zvonareva, Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova, Li Na, Petra Kvitova and Francesca Schiavone are seeded No.3 through No.8. French Open champion Li and Wimbledon champion Kvitova will be playing their first tournaments of the summer hardcourt season, as will Schiavone.
Marion Bartoli, Sam Stosur, Andrea Petkovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova,Agnieszka Radwanska, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Jelena Jankovic andDominika Cibulkova are seeded No.9 to No.16, respectively.
Another star in the draw will be Serena Williams, who returned from a year-long injury and illness lay-off before Wimbledon. Although she is ranked down in the 70s, she has even fewer tournaments on her points total with three, and just over a week ago made an emphatic run in Stanford, winning the first WTA title of her comeback (beating Sharapova, Sabine Lisicki and Bartoli in the last three rounds). She begins against former Top 20 player Alona Bondarenko.
