Maria Sharapova confirms entry into 2012 Brisbane International Tournament – Tennis News
Russian, Maria Sharapova has confirmed her entry into the season opening, 2012 Brisbane International played at the Queensland Tennis Centre. The event, jointly organized by the Association Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour and by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) World Tour, is a warm up event for the first Grand Slam tournament of the season, The Australian Open.
Currently world number 5 since two consecutive years-2010 and 2011, Sharapova announced that she was looking forward to starting her next season in Brisbane and was excited about the championships thus confirming her entry. This year she played three Grand Slams and was a Wimbledon finalist 2011, although she didn’t win the match she was all about spirit and motivation.
Sharapova’s last run on tour was at Wimbledon on the 2nd of July this year against then world number 8 and now world number 7, Petra Kvitova. Sharapova, had not dropped a single set during the tournament and pushed it out on the outdoor grass court in the finals, however, lost the match 3–6, 4–6 straight two sets. With this result she has been able to maintain her position as world number 5, which is the highest she has ever reached since she came back from her shoulder injury in 2008.
2011 saw her first official Australian Open warm-up which was held at the 2011 ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand. The number one seed there won two rounds but lost in the third to the Hungarian Greta Arn 2-6, 3-6 losing two straight sets. Later during the year she changed coaches and participated in the first Grand Slam of the season, where she was seeded number 14; she qualified the first three rounds and lost the fourth to Andrea Petkovic due to inconsistency. During the French Open earlier this year she managed to reach the semi-final as the number seven seed, before losing to Li Na 4–6, 5–7 and ending her clay season with 12 wins and only 2 losses. Sharapova, is yet to play at the US Open in September this year.
Tournament Director Cameron Pearson was excited about the news for the combined ATP-WTA event and was awaiting the tournament in Brisbane 2012. While looking forward to top players at the event Pearson said, “The reality is we can now look forward to seeing even more of the world’s top women players join the world’s best men competing here in Brisbane”
Started in 1970’s it wasn’t until the 1980’s that the tournament started as a regular run; a major event of the Grand Prix Tennis Circuit until 1990. In 1997 the WTA created a new event played on outdoor hard-courts, adding to the three pre-existing tournaments of Auckland, Sydney and Hobart, making it one of the two events held in the first week of the women's calendar. In 1998 the Gold Coast Classic became Thalgo Australian Women's Hard-courts which later in 2003 was again renamed to Uncle Tobys Hard-courts and finally in 2006 Adelaide International and the Mondial Australian Women's Hard-courts merged into a larger ATP-WTA joint tournament in Brisbane. This year in May the WTA-ATP announced yet another upgrade, to a Premier event which meant more prize money and unlimited participation by the world’s top 10 tennis players.
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