As it was expected, two Georgian tennis players will participate in the first tournament of 2011. Anna Tatishvili and Oksana Kalashnikova will start playing in the qualifying draw of Australian Open tomorrow in the morning. They will need to win three matches to go through the main draw.
Tatishvili who is in the 132nd place at Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is among seed players of the qualifying draw. Georgian tennis player who will become 21 years old on February 3, will start playing with the 12th seed. Polish Urszula Radwańska will be her first opponent.
A 20-year-old Urszula is a sister of titled Agnieszka Radwańska (the 14th place at WTA ranking) but she does not play so well as her sister. Urszula has not won an important match for a long time and she is in the 193th place. In August 2009, she was in the 62nd place. Georgian and Polish tennis players have never played against each other.
If Tatishvili beats Radwańska, in the second circle she will play against winner between Ukrainian Mariya Koryttseva (the 147th place at ranking) and French Laura Thorpe (the 178th). In case of going through the last qualifying round, one of these tennis players will be her opponent: Stefanie Vögele (Switzerland, the 136th), Lesya Tsurenko (Ukraine, the 157th), Heather Watson (Great Britain, the 149th) and Ii-Miao Zhu (China, the 298th).
Last year, Tatishvili played against German Kathrin Wörle in the first circle of the qualifying draw and lost 1:6, 3:6. Wörle won next two matches and went through the maind draw where she lost against Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko 2:6, 2:6.
Last year, a 20-year-old Oksana Kalashnikova played against Maka Chakhnashvili. Oksana won easily 6:2, 6:3. Then she lost against Russian Anastasia Pivovarova 2:6, 5:7. Now Chakhnashvili is not in Melbourne and Kalashnikova will start the tournament with playing against another Russian Ekaterina Bychkova.
Bychkova is in the 180th place at ranking. She had the best period in February 2006 when she was in the 66th place. Kalashnikova is in the 191st place at ranking. These tennis players are playing against each other for the first time.
If Georgian tennis player beats Russian, her next opponent will be winner between Slovenian Maša Zec Peškirič (the 141st) and American Irina Falconi (the 184th). In case of going through the last qualifying round, one of these tennis players will be opponent of Kalashnikova: Olivia Sanchez (France, the 122nd), Zarina Diyas (Kazakhstan, the 174th), Anna Floris (Italy, the 165th) and Anaïs Laurendon (France, the 186th).
The qualifying draw will start at 3:00 Tbilisi time in "Melbourne Park". Georgian tennis players will show up in No.2 seed matches. Kalashnikova will wait at the 4th court for the end of the match between Slovak Kuchova and Japanese Iijima. Tatishvili will show up on the 13th court after the end of the match between Belarusian Kuryanovic and Indian Mirza. Perhaps, Georgian girls will not start playing till 4 o'clock in the morning.
96 tennis players will play at the qualifying tournament. 12 best players will go through the main tournament which will start on January 17. Each tennis player of the qualifying draw will gain 2 rating points. One victory gives 40 points, 2 - 50, and going through the maind draw gives 60 points.
Prize money of Australian Open 2011 is 24 million USD and it is 3.8% more than it was last year. Man and woman champions will win 2.1 million USD.


Dato Manjavidze