11 October 2003

Qualifiers for the Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge gets underway at the Metropolitan Resort and Beach Club today, with four places available in the main draw.

A total of 16 matches will be played, starting at 9am.

"We are ready to roll," said tournament director Hani El Khafief. "We can expect some good matches in the qualifiers."

This year's event has attracted the best-ever field, which had included Hungary's Petra Mandula - ranked 40 on the WTA Tour - till late last night.

Mandula was the latest withdrawal from the star-studded entry to the tournament after she lost in the singles and doubles at the WTA Tashkent Open yesterday.

"She (Mandula) called in to say that she is not travelling to Dubai," confirmed El Khafief. Tathiana Garbin of Italy and Adriana Barna of Germany had earlier pulled out of this $75,000 competition.

Consequently, taking the top seeding will be Italy's Emmanuelle Gagliardi, who is ranked 59 on the WTA. Defending champion Angelique Widjaja retains her third seeding based on her ranking of 78. The second seed will also be an Italian as Flavia Pinetta was the third confirmed wild card late yesterday.

Pinetta had sent in her entry directly to the ITF, and the organisers were unaware of her participation in this competition till she sent in her travel details to be picked up at the airport yesterday. "Her entry was misplaced, but we acted quickly and Khalaf Al Habtoor was kind enough to hand over the final wild card to Flavia," related El Khafief.

Other players to watch out for in the main draw include Geramny's Barbara Rittner Martina Sucha of Slovakia, Selima Sfar of Tunisia and Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus.

"Without doubt this is the best field we've ever attracted," said El Khafief. "With such a strong field we can expect some strong games and high competition."

Commenting on the quality of the tournament ITF Circuit Director, Jane Harvey said: "The competition looks strong going by the names of players who've decided to come here. But we will only know the actual level of play once the event starts."

Heirarchy for the tournament
ITF Circuit Director: Jane Harvey
Tournament Director: Hani El Khafief
Chief Chair Umpire: Asitha Attygala (Sri Lanka)
Chief of Umpires: Jimmy Camero
ITF White Badge officials: Waleed Samaan (Lebanon); Abdul Raouf Abdul Salam (Kuwait); Dr. Meher Ghazala (UAE).
Local certified chair umpires: Dr. Ayman Jundi (Syria); Benji Fernando (Philippines); Abner Orale (Philippines).

Seedings
1. Emmanuelle Gagliardi (Italy); 2. Flavia Pinetta (Italy); 3. Angelique Widjaja (Indonesia); 4. Arantxa Parra-Santoja (Spain); 5. Aniko Kapros (Hungary); 6. Adriana Serra Zanetti (Italy); 7. Lubomira Kurhajcova (Slovakia); 8. Martina Sucha (Slovakia).

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