As the 2015 WTA season gets into its final stages, Hong Kong’s Victoria Park tennis stadium hosts the second edition of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open and the WTA returns to one of the world’s most exciting cities after a successful maiden edition last year.
The second edition of the Hong Kong Tennis Open had some big names on the tournament entry list, including 2014 champion Sabine Lisicki, Victoria Azarenka, Eugenie Bouchard & Garbine Mugurzua.
Unfortunately, all these players dropped out one by one in the weeks leading up to the tournament. While Lisicki & Azarenka were forced to end their seasons due to injury, Bouchard is still fighting the symptoms from her concussion sustained at the US Open.
The final player to withdraw from the event was Garbine Muguruza. The Spaniard decided to give the tournament a miss following her successful run in Beijing and her qualification for the WTA finals in Singapore.
The tournament organizers have worked hard to make up for the dropped-out players though, announcing a string of high-profile wildcard players as replacements, including Jelena Jankovic, Samantha Stosur & Angelique Kerber.
The German #1 comes to Hong Kong in hopes to still make it to Singapore. Kerber will need an equally strong run as fellow German Lisicki had last year to punch her ticket for the WTA finals. There’s still plenty of quality opposition for the wildcard players to face in the draw, including Venus Williams, Alize Cornet & Monica Puig.
The tournament’s qualifying stage completed on Sunday and first-round action at the tournament will kick off on Monday. Keep checking back all week for all the latest from Hong Kong.
