{"id":15676,"date":"2019-12-13T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T19:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/?p=15676"},"modified":"2020-01-03T18:16:15","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T07:16:15","slug":"kokkinakis-bai-set-for-canberra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/news\/2019\/12\/13\/kokkinakis-bai-set-for-canberra","title":{"rendered":"Kokkinakis &amp; Bai set for Canberra"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/news\/2020\/01\/03\/apis-canberra-international-relocates-to-bendigo\">RELATED &#8211; APIS CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL RELOCATES TO BENDIGO<\/a><\/h6>\n<p>Thanasi Kokkinakis (SA) and Alison Bai (ACT) have confirmed they will begin their year at the Apis Canberra International taking place at the Canberra Tennis Centre from 6-12 January 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Kokkinakas, will line up for the ATP Challenger 125 event which offers over USD$160,000 in prizemoney and 125 ATP points for the champion.<\/p>\n<p>The world No.200 will be making his first appearance in the capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to starting my year off in Canberra.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t been to Canberra since I attended a training camp there as a junior and I\u2019ve heard great things about the facilities at the Canberra Tennis Centre.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me the main goal heading into the Australian summer is to stay healthy and get some quality matches under my belt.\u00a0 I\u2019ve put in the hard work the past few months and I\u2019m feeling great and ready to get back out on the court.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m anticipating the field is going to be very strong in Canberra and it is a great chance for me to test myself against some of the best players in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Local hope, Bai will appear in the women\u2019s USD$25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event.<\/p>\n<p>Bai reached a career high doubles ranking of No.139 this year and played in numerous WTA doubles events in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The ACT\u2019s top female will be looking to draw upon some home town support for the event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am definitely looking forward to it, it\u2019s always really nice to have a tournament in your backyard. Now especially leading up to the Australian Open, it\u2019s definitely going to be more exciting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo have the event during January when it\u2019s actually the summer of tennis, hopefully we\u2019ll get people more excited and come down and have a hit,\u201d Bai added.<\/p>\n<p>Tennis ACT CEO and Apis Canberra International Tournament Director, Kim Kachel is looking forward to seeing Kokkinakis and Bai in action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are thrilled to welcome Thanasi to the capital for the first time and are sure the Canberra community will get right behind him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanasi is one of the most exciting young talents on the ATP Tour and has proven he has what it takes to beat the best in the world, posting victories over Roger Federer (SUI) and Milos Raonic (CAN).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlison posted her first top 100 victory early this year at the Hobart International on her way to qualifying for her first WTA singles event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlison is an amazing ambassador for tennis in Canberra and has posted some great results here, making the semifinals of the $USD60,000 event in 2017 and earlier this year winning the doubles title at the ACT Claycourt International #2.\u201c<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RELATED &#8211; APIS CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL RELOCATES TO BENDIGO Thanasi Kokkinakis (SA) and Alison Bai (ACT) have confirmed they will begin their year at the Apis Canberra International taking place at the Canberra Tennis Centre from 6-12 January 2020. Kokkinakas, will line up for the ATP Challenger 125 event which offers over USD$160,000 in prizemoney and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5789,"featured_media":15680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15676","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\/15676","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=15676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}