No show by 'Maria-killer' Maria

Submitted by Zam on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Haresh Deol

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 13:32:00

KUALA LUMPUR: Tennis fans wanting to watch Maria Kirilenko sweating it out at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian and Country Resort would be disappointed to learn that the Russian beauty may opt out from the WTA Malaysian Open scheduled Feb 23-28.

Maria Kirilenko

Mailsport learnt that Kirilenko, who turned 23 on Jan 25, has cited ‘busy schedule’ as the reason for not playing in the inaugural Malaysian tournament.

Insiders, however, believe it has something to do with her high appearance fee. The Moscow-born Kirilenko has also decided to skip the PTT Pattaya Open which starts this weekend in Thailand.

Currently ranked 37th in the world, Kirilenko was the quarterfinalist of the recent Australian Open where she lost 6-1, 6-3 to China's Zheng Jie. She also had headlines all over the world for defeating compatriot Maria Sharapova in the first round 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-4.

Kirilenko, who was in KL for the Showdown of Champions in December, is the only absentee from the star-studded cast organisers have lined up for the WTA series.

Among the confirmed players include Elena Dementieva, Li Na, Sania Mirza, Jelena Dokic, Kimiko Date Krumm and Tamarine Tanasugaran.

Several of the players, who are already in KL for the Fed Cup Asia/ Oceania Zone tournaments, are expected to conduct coaching clinics for the national juniors before the WTA Malaysia Open.

Comments

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Comment: *

Ground rules for posting comments:

1. No personal attacks.

2. No vulgar or discriminatory language.

3. If you do not follow these rules, we will remove your comment.

Disclaimer

In line with Malay Mail's tag-line "Your Voice", do use our comments service to express your opinions.

Kindly note that your comments will be moderated by Malay Mail before they are posted on this site. Malay Mail holds the sole right to publish or delete a comment that has been posted at its absolute discretion. Malay Mail will also not correct grammar or spelling mistakes that may exist in such comments.

We value your feedback and will strive to publish your comments as long as they:

* DO NOT contain anything which could be potentially libellous or defamatory.

* DO NOT contain foul language and are of a vulgar or abusive nature.

* DO NOT contain any offensive slurs.

* DO NOT contain religious or racial discrimination; and/or

* DO relate to the post that you are responding to.

Comments that breach the guidelines will be deleted/ignored or modified with immediate effect and with no prior notification to the author.

Also please note that the views expressed herewith are the sole responsibility of the visitor who submits each comment and not those of Malay Mail. Malay Mail does not bear the responsibility of any comment posted on the site. The publishing of such comment does not and is not to be understood that Malay Mail agrees with it, endorses it, or believes it to be correct and/or true.

Email me about all replies to this article.

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Math Question: * 1 + 1 =

Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.