Svetlana Kuznetsova will kick-off the new season in Auckland – Tennis News
Russian World No.19, Svetlana Kuznetsova, will start the 2012 season in Auckland, New Zealand as she is the fourth seeded participant in the ASB Classic tournament. She will join in the likes of Venus Williams, Sabine Lisicki,
Peng Shuai and Flavia Pennetta along with some other women tennis star players at ASB Tennis Centre from January 2-7, 2012.
Tournament Director, Richard Palmer, was excited to have the Russian onboard as it didn’t cost him a single penny to include her on the list of participants whereas he had to pay huge amount of appearance fee to Flavia Pennetta
for her participation. World No.5, Maria Sharapova, was paid $130,000 appearance fee as well as $6500 in prize money.
Palmer was also excited about the fact that he has four top 20 players playing this tournament. While conducting the press conference about the participation of the Russian tennis icon, he said, “Kuznetsova's name just appeared
on the list. And we thought wow, no negotiations, no requests or demands; she just put her name down to come back. She's still a very good player. She was here this year and lost second round, so she was obviously comfortable here and wants to kick off the
year the same way."
Svetlana Kuznetsova made a debut in Auckland this year and won her first round match against the local Sacha Jones but lost to the Chinese World No.19, Peng Shuai, and couldn’t qualify for the quarterfinals. Her short termed participation
in the last year’s ASB Classic seemed to be very fascinating as she decides to make a return to the same event in 2012.
This season has been pretty successful for her as she climbed from World No.72 and finished it at World No.19 spot. She started the season in Auckland and then flew to Sydney where she lost to Li Na in the quarterfinals. She was
impressive in Australian Open but her memorable run came to an end at the hands of the Italian Francesca Schiavone.
She couldn’t perform well in the Fed Cup but rocked the world by reaching the finals in Dubai where she lost to Danish World No.1, Caroline Wozniacki. Doha, Indian Wells and Miami were the events to forget as she was knocked-out
in the early stages of all these tournaments but she managed to gain momentum and cruised into the semi-finals in Marbella.
Her outstanding performance was seen in the French Open as she managed to flabbergast everyone with her stunning performance and reached the quarterfinals of the tournament. She did well in the rest of the tournament but couldn’t
win the title to her name. Hopefully she will kick-off the new season in emphatic fashion and triumph in Auckland to end her title drought.
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