NINETEEN TOP WORLD TENNIS PLAYERS EYEING MALAYSIAN OPEN

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 (Bernama) -- Nineteen top world men's tennis players
ranked between eighth to 64th in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)
rankings, have confirmed their participation in the inaugural Malaysian Open,
one of the ATP World Tour 250 series, to be held at the indoor Putra Stadium in
Bukit Jalil from September 26th till October 4th.

The 19 tennis player have direct acceptance into the main draw.

The breakdown of players are, two players from the top 10s, Nikolay Davdenko
(Russia, ranked world 8th) and Fernando Verdasco (Spain, 10th); while five
players are from the top 20s, Robin Soderling (Sweden, 11th), Fernando Gonzalez
(Chile, 12th), Gael Monfils (France, 13th), Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic, 18th)
and David Ferrer (Spain, 19th).

The rest are Dmitry Tursunov (Russia, 32th), Feliciano Lopez (Spain,
36th), Richard Gasquet (France, 38th), Lleyton Hewitt (Australia, 42th), Igor
Kunitsyn (Russia, 43th), Martin Vassallo Arguello (Argentina, 49th), Kristof
Vliegen (Belgium, 50th), Jose Acasuso (Argentina, 51st), Florent Serra
(France,56th), Andrey Golubev (Kazahakstan, 57rd),Christophe Rochus (Belgium,
60th) and Mihail Youzhny (Russia, 64th).

The tournament organiser, IMG Senior Vice President and Head of Tennis for
Asia, Nick Freyer said the main draw in the men's singles has 28 places and the
top four seed will receive first-round byes.


"The entry deadline is six weeks before the tournament starts with 19
players, depending on their rankings, going straight into the all-important main
draw with cut off ranking 64th and above," said Freyer.

He explained that any player who wanted to compete in the 28 slots in the
main draw will be given three ways to advance into the draw.

"The first way is via 'wild card' which is to be decided by the Tournament
Director and the second way is by going through the qualifying rounds in which
four qualifiers will advance into the main draw.

The third way is by picking up one of the two 'Special Exempt' places.

"A 'Special Exempt' is held for players who cannot get to the qualifying
draw because they are still in the main draw of a same level tournament
elsewhere (other ATP 250 tournaments) a week before," Freyer, says.

The qualifying draw will have 32 places with three places reserved for wild
cards holders, two of which will be allocated to Malaysian-based players to be
chosen by the Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia.

The Malaysian Open offers a total prize money of USD947,750 or RM3.31
million.

Tickets for the 2009 Malaysian Open Kuala Lumpur are available through
TicketPro www.ticketpro.com.my or via their Hotline +60378807999, or people can
purchase tickets through TicketPro outlets.

-- BERNAMA