10 October 2003

Italy's Tathiana Garbin and German Adriana Barna are the only two notable withdrawals from the 6th Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge, which gets underway at the Metropolitan Resort and Beach Club from tomorrow.

At least 40-odd players have already landed for the sixth edition of this week-long $75,000 prize money tournament.

Both players took part in the WTA Tashkent Open, which is scheduled to end in the Uzbek capital tomorrow.

While Barna was the qualifier in the upper half of the draw, Garbin was unseeded in the lower half for the $140,000 Tashkent competition.

Italian Garbin, ranked 89 on the WTA Tour, had been given a tentative seeding of No.5 in the event, while Barna was in the qualifying round of the competition, which is scheduled to start from today.

"A couple of players won't make too much of a difference considering the field we've already managed to assemble," said tournament director Hani El Khafief to the Gulf News.

"We still have a cut of 170 during this tournament."

The 32-player main draw is headed by top seed Petra Mandula of Hungary, while Switzerland's Emmanuelle Gagliardi and defending champion Angelique Widjaja will be her nearest challengers as the second and third seeds.

Making a beeline for this event are also Germany's Caroline Schneider, Slovakia's Henrieta Nagyova and Kyra Nagy of Hungary.

"With so many players coming in at the same time, we've been having a tough time finding courts for their practice. Fortunately, Le Meridien Mina Seyahi and the Ritz Carlton have been generous to offer us their courts," El Khafief acknowledged.

Yesterday, El Khafief took the ball boys through a practice session.

Today is the official practice day and sign-in for the players, which will be between 4-6 pm.

The qualifying matches will be held tomorrow and Sunday, while the main draw of the tournament will be held at 3 pm on Sunday.

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