Bali to host new WTA season-ending tournament
September 18th, 2007
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) — Bali’s popular women’s tennis tournament was upgraded on Monday to serve as the venue for the WTA’s new International-level season final from 2009.
The current Bali event will be staged for one more year in its post-U.S. Open week at the tropical holiday resort before moving to a November timeslot from 2009 till 2011.
The new-look tournament will then feature the best eight women not qualified for the season-ending WTA Championships in Doha, Qatar, who will compete in the round-robin field in Bali for 600,000 dollars in prize money.
The “”Road to Bali”" will serve as the finale for a series of Asian tournaments to be staged mainly during the autumn period in venues including Guangzhou, Seoul, Kolkata and Singapore.
A tournament in Bangkok will be played in February for players returning to Europe from the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the season.
The new championships is part of the WTA’s “”roadmap”" proposals which will shorten the season and are also designed to insure that more top names show up at events to combat the current rash of injury pullouts.
“”It’s great that we will be featuring and promoting in their very own end-of-year finale a group of world class players who are vying to one day be number one in the world,”" said Daniela Hantuchova, who lost the Bali final on Sunday to Lindsay Davenport.
Source: http://www.tehrantimes.com
Entry Filed under: Bali Tourism News
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