Italian star confirmed for Auckland tennis classic

Reuters

SIGNED AND SEALED: Italian tennis star Flavia Pennetta, the world number 12, has signed to play at next year's Auckland ASB Classic.

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World No 12 Flavia Pennetta is coming to New Zealand to contest the international women’s tennis tournament in Auckland in January.

Her appearance - confirmed this morning - goes a long way to making up for the embarrassment the ASB Bank Classic suffered when another drawcard, Belgium's Yanina Wikmayer, was caught up in a doping ban earlier this month.

Pennetta, the 27-year-old Italian star with model looks, has had a big year topped by a brief appearance in the top 10 on the back of her quarterfinals appearance at the US Open where she eventually lost to Serena Williams.

She is the first Italian to make the top 10 and will come to Auckland as the likely top seed.

The field of direct entries for the tournament will be confirmed next Tuesday.

Tournament director Brenda Perry said Pennetta would add ''class, entertainment and colour''.

She appeared here in 2003 when she made the last round of qualifying and has been on the rise ever since. This year had been her best and she had appeared to ''take here game to a new level''.

''She is the consummate professional. She has proven extremely dangerous to any top 10 player and has a 4-3 winning record against Venus Williams which says a lot about her,'' Perry said.

Pennetta has eight singles titles to her name including two this year in Palermo and Los Angeles. She has made nine singles finals and won six doubles titles.

A regular in the Italian Federation Cup team, she played in the 2009 final against the United States just over a week ago winning both her singles matches in her nation's triumph. She was also a member of the Italian winning team in 2006 and appeared at the last Olympics.

Perry said Pennatta was very passionate about playing for her country. Her appearance in the Federation Cup final came at the expense of what would have been a lucrative time at the Champions tournament in Bali where she would only have needed to win two rounds to end the year ranked in the top 10.

Off court Pennetta has modelled while at a tournament in Milan this year and has featured in several magazine photo shoots.

Pennetta was pronounced a Knight of Order of Merit of the Republic in January 2007 by the President of Italy.

She joins what looks to be another good field in Auckland. World No15, Li Na from China plus No 22 and 2009 finalist Elena Vesnina from Russia will be seeds in singles while the world No1 doubles and multi-Grand Slam winning pair of Cara Black (Zimbabwe) and Liezel Huber (United States) will play here.

The ASB Classic is a US$220,000 International Series event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.