{"id":12377,"date":"2017-10-23T15:05:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T04:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/?p=12377"},"modified":"2017-10-23T15:05:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T04:05:23","slug":"aussie-women-lead-apis-canberra-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/news\/2017\/10\/23\/aussie-women-lead-apis-canberra-field","title":{"rendered":"Aussie women lead Apis Canberra field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rising star <strong>Lizette Cabrera <\/strong>(QLD) and Fed Cup representatives <strong>Arina Rodionova <\/strong>(VIC) and <strong>Destanee Aiava <\/strong>(VIC) will lead the women\u2019s field at the <strong>Apis Canberra International<\/strong>.\u00a0 The three women have had outstanding seasons in 2017, peaking at career high rankings.\u00a0 The field includes 12 of Australia\u2019s top 20 female players along with representatives from 13 additional countries who will compete for USD$60,000 in prizemoney along with valuable world ranking points.<\/p>\n<p>Cabrera has been in impressive form reaching the quarterfinals of WTA events in Guangzhou and Hong Kong and recording a career best win over world number 31 <strong>Anett Kontaveit <\/strong>(EST).\u00a0 Now up to 141 in the WTA rankings, the 19 year old also pushed Australia\u2019s top ranked female <strong>Daria Gavrilova <\/strong>to three sets in the quarterfinals of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>Rodionova will return to Canberra for the third consecutive year, heading into this year\u2019s event as the top ranked player at a career high of 117 in the world.\u00a0 Rodionova has had a breakthrough year at Grand Slam level, qualifying for Wimbledon before defeating 16<sup>th<\/sup> seed <strong>Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova <\/strong>(RUS) in the opening round.\u00a0 \u00a0She also progressed to the second round of the US Open and made her first career WTA quarterfinal at the Jiangxi Open in China.<\/p>\n<p>After starting the year ranked 386, 17 year old, <strong>Destanee Aiava <\/strong>(VIC) has risen up the rankings in 2017, peaking at 147 in the world last month.\u00a0 In January she became the first player born in the 2000\u2019s to win a WTA main draw match when she defeated <strong>Bethanie Mattek-Sands <\/strong>(USA) in the opening round of the <strong>Brisbane International.\u00a0 <\/strong>Aiava won Pro Tour titles in Perth and Mornington, before being named in Australia\u2019s Fed Cup team against Serbia in April.<\/p>\n<p>Victorian <strong>Olivia Rogowska <\/strong>will be the in form Aussie to watch, winning Pro Tour titles in Cairns and Penrith, along with a semifinal appearance at Brisbane.\u00a0 Rogowska was last week awarded a qualifying wildcard into Australian Open 2018 as the best performing Australian woman across the four $25,000 Pro Tour events.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kimberly Birrell <\/strong>(QLD) will return to the event after reaching the semifinals in 2015.\u00a0 The Aussie peaked at a career high ranking of 275 in early 2016 before being sidelined with a chronic elbow injury for most of 2016\/17.\u00a0 She has made a strong return to the court, winning the Pro tour title in Brisbane and reaching the final in Penrith.<\/p>\n<p>A host of other Australians will contest the main draw including <strong>Isabelle Wallace <\/strong>(VIC), <strong>Tammi Patterson <\/strong>(VIC), <strong>Naiktha Bains <\/strong>(QLD), <strong>Zoe Hives <\/strong>(VIC), <strong>Ellen Perez <\/strong>(NSW), and <strong>Olivia Tjandramulia <\/strong>(QLD)<\/p>\n<p>The international charge will be led by <strong>Miyu Kato <\/strong>(JPN) and <strong>Asia Muhammad <\/strong>(USA), currently ranked 123 and 137 respectively.\u00a0 The pair have both experienced success in Canberra with Kato winning the <strong>2016<\/strong> <strong>ACT Claycourt International #2 <\/strong>and Muhammad winning the 2015 Canberra International.<\/p>\n<p>Local hope <strong>Alison Bai <\/strong>(ACT) will have to come through qualifying along with <strong>Jessica Moore <\/strong>(WA), <strong>Sara Tomic <\/strong>(QLD) and <strong>Storm Sanders <\/strong>(WA).\u00a0 National Academy Canberra athletes <strong>Lisa Mays <\/strong>and <strong>Annerly Poulos <\/strong>will have to wait until closer to the event to see if they will play with both currently on the alternate list along with <strong>Sarina Kang <\/strong>(ACT).<\/p>\n<p>Full entry list is available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itftennis.com\/procircuit\/tournaments\/women's-tournament\/info.aspx?tournamentid=1100040555\">here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The entry list for the men\u2019s event will be announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><u>About the Apis Canberra International<\/u><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Part of The Australian Pro Tour, the next generation of top tennis players are set to compete when the <strong>Apis Canberra International<\/strong> kicks off in Canberra from October 28 \u2013 November 5 with an <strong>ATP USD$75,000<\/strong> event (Men) and <strong>ITF \u00a0USD$60,000 <\/strong>event (Women).<\/p>\n<p>Players from the world\u2019s top 200, and a crop of rising tennis stars from Australia and across the globe, will compete for significant prize money and valuable world ranking points, right here in Lyneham at the <strong>Canberra Tennis Centre<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Australian Pro Tour is a collaboration of <strong>International Tennis Federation<\/strong> (ITF) Women\u2019s and Men\u2019s, and <strong>ATP Challenger<\/strong> (Men\u2019s) professional tournaments and is integral to introducing players to professional tennis and providing pathways to the WTA and ATP Tours.<\/p>\n<p>Men\u2019s qualifying begins on <strong>Saturday 28 October<\/strong> and women\u2019s qualifying commences <strong>Sunday 29 October <\/strong>while, main draw action is scheduled to commence on <strong>Monday October 30<\/strong> for men and <strong>Tuesday October 31<\/strong> for women.<\/p>\n<p>Finals weekend will be <strong>Saturday 4 \u2013 Sunday 5 November<\/strong>, with doubles scheduled on Saturday and singles on Sunday. \u00a0There will be a free Kids Tennis Day on Saturday 4 November from 9.00am-11.00am.<\/p>\n<p>Entry to the event is free each day, with a gold coin donation on finals weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The main draw for the <strong>Apis Canberra International<\/strong> Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s events are subject to change until Monday 30 October 2017.<\/p>\n<p>You can follow the Australian Pro Tour score updates on Twitter from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/oztennisresults\">@oztennisresults<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on the Apis Canberra International, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tournaments\/pro-tournaments\/australian-pro-tour\/traralgon\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 For more information of the Australian Pro Tour, click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/tournaments\/pro-tournaments\/australian-pro-tour\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more information of the ATP Challenger circuit, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atpworldtour.com\/en\/atp-challenger-tour\">here<\/a>. For more information on the ITF Pro Circuit click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itftennis.com\/protour\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For all tennis news follow @tenniscanberra on Twitter or like Tennis ACT on Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rising star Lizette Cabrera (QLD) and Fed Cup representatives Arina Rodionova (VIC) and Destanee Aiava (VIC) will lead the women\u2019s field at the Apis Canberra International.\u00a0 The three women have had outstanding seasons in 2017, peaking at career high rankings.\u00a0 The field includes 12 of Australia\u2019s top 20 female players along with representatives from 13 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":12380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5789"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}