Stage set for 28th edition of annual Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge

The stage is set for the start of the 28th Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge at the Habtoor Grand Resort from Sunday.

Hungary’s Dalma Galfi with a WTA Ranking of 96 will lead a strong field of players including 2021 champion Daria Snigur from the Ukraine along with Anastasia Zakharova (No. 101), Austria’s Sinja Kraus (No. 105), Saturday’s champion of the 1st Fujairah W75 Championships Petra Marcinko of Croatia (No. 117) and Katarzyna Kawa of Poland (No. 124) as the top five seeds.

The press conference to conduct the singles draws will be at 11 am on Sunday following the start of the qualifying rounds that are scheduled to get underway from 10 am. The singles and doubles finals will be held on Dec.7.

Top seed Dalma Galfi of Hungary – the 2015 ITF Junior World Champion – will be another player to watch out for. The 27-year-old has had a pretty solid season winning her first WTA 125 title at the Oeiras Ladies Open in April and then claiming the WTA 125 Catalonia Open the following week.

The pick of the lot, however, will be former champion Snigur. In 2024, Snigur achieved her best Tour results on her favourite surface of grass at Wimbledon and Nottingham. She also made it to the main draw at the Australian Open.

“Once again, this annual tournament has attracted some of the best upcoming talents in women’s tennis,” said Laith Al Ani, Operations Director and Chief of Officials at the tournament.

“We have a few changes this year with three Bronze and three White Badge Chair Umpires and three physiotherapists to pay attention to the health and well-being of the players during the week,” he added.

Former top stars Kristina Mladenovic and Vera Zvonareva will be joined by promising teenager Vendula Valdmannova from the Czech Republic and Great Britain’s Freya Christie as the four wild cards in the singles main draw at this annual tournament featuring on the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour Calendar.

The five wild cards for the qualifying rounds starting from Sunday include Hungary’s Eszter Finak, two Slovakian players Viktoria Morvayova and Nina Vargova, Seven Oral from Turkey and Great Britain’s Mika Stojsavlevic.

The Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge began as a $25,000 (Dhs91,250) event that was later classified as a $75,000 tournament between 1999 to 2015. In 2016, the event was upgraded to a $100,000+H competition on the ITF Women’s Circuit.