By Craig Ellenport, USOpenSeries.com
Grand Slam winners Garbiñe Muguruza, Victoria Azarenka and Jelena Ostapenko highlight the list of 20 players announced Wednesday to compete in the 2019 Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic, which takes place July 29-Aug. 4 in San Jose, Calif. The first of three WTA tournaments in this summer’s US Open Series, the Silicon Valley Classic also features two former world No. 1s and 15 WTA title holders.
Mihaela Buzarnescu, currently ranked No. 42, returns to defend her title. The 31-year-old Romanian defeated Greece’s Maria Sakkari, 6-1, 6-0, in the 2018 final. Sakkari, 23, won her first career title earlier this year at Rabat and is currently ranked No. 33 in the world. She is one of six women in this year’s player field who have already won singles titles in 2019.
Another notable participant is 17-year-old American Amanda Anisimova, who won her first career title in Bogotá. More recently, Anisimova had an impressive run at Roland Garros, where she defeated defending French Open champion Simona Halep on her way to the semifinals.
Azarenka is the only other player in the field who has won this event. The former world No. 1 from Belarus—who will turn 30 during this summer’s tournament—won the Silicon Valley Classic in 2010.
The event returns for its second year at San José State University. Prior to that, it had been held at Stanford University. The Silicon Valley Classic was first played in 1971, when Billie Jean King won the first of her three titles at the event.
Other featured players coming to San José this year include world No. 7 Elina Svitolina, No. 10 Aryna Sabalenka, Chinese No. 1 Qiang Wang, Belgian star Elise Mertens and Australian Open semifinalist Danielle Collins.
The tournament will announce four additional wild-card players in the next few weeks, as the 28-player singles draw rounds out with four tournament qualifiers. The qualifying tournament will take place July 27-28. Qualifying is open to the public.
Featuring a 28-player singles draw as well as a 16-team doubles draw, the tournament boasts $876,183 in prize money.
Here is the official 2019 Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic player field:
Name, Country, Ranking
Elina Svitolina, UKR, 7
Aryna Sabalenka, BLR, 10
Qiang Wang, CHN, 15
Elise Mertens, BEL, 21
Donna Vekic, CRO, 22
Petra Martic, CRO, 25
Garbiñe Muguruza, ESP, 26
Amanda Anisimova, USA, 27
Carla Suárez Navarro, ESP, 31
Maria Sakkari, GRE, 33
Danielle Collins, USA, 34
Jelena Ostapenko, LAT, 37
Victoria Azarenka, BLR, 41
Mihaela Buzarnescu, ROU, 42
Saisai Zheng, CHN, 44
Ajla Tomljanovic, AUS, 47
Ekaterina Alexandrova, RUS, 50
Shuai Zhang, CHN, 52
Andrea Petkovic, GER, 71
Magda Linette, POL, 75
In addition to the WTA players set to compete in San José, the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic will be hosting four former ATP stars as part of the Invesco Series on Saturday, Aug. 3, following the evening women’s semifinal match.
The Invesco Series is a legends tour event that features three one-set matches consisting of two semifinals and one final. The lineup for the San José event includes 2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick, 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang, 10-time ATP tour winner James Blake and 11-time tour singles champion Mark Philippoussis.
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