Sloane ditches NZ for Brisbane path
SURPRISE US Open winner Sloane Stephens has charted a route through Brisbane to what she hopes solves her big Australian Open problem.
Stephens and world No. 2 Garbine Muguruza were announced as heavyweight additions to the Brisbane International, which now has two top- five entrants for both the women’s and men’s fields.
A fearless shotmaker ranked No. 13, the American won the US Open last month in the most unexpected of circumstances, having returned in July from an 11month tour absence forced by foot surgery.
Stephens, 24, ends a fiveyear absence from the Brisbane International by agreeing to start her 2018 season at the Queensland Tennis Centre from December 31- January 7.
In her two most recent Australian Open campaigns, she has twice played the WTA Auckland tournament, contested in the same week of the season as Brisbane.
Despite winning the Auckland title in 2016, she has ditched it after subsequently failing to get past the first round at Melbourne Park either time when beginning her season in New Zealand.
Brisbane organisers can claim two top- five ranked players in both the fields for women, with Muguruza and fourth- ranked Karolina Pliskova, and men, with world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and former Wimbledon and US Open winner Andy Murray.
“It wasn’t difficult to recruit Sloane this time,’’ Brisbane tournament director Geoff Quinlan said.
“She commented to us on how great the feedback had been to her about playing Brisbane to track towards the Australian Open.
“She was looking forward to playing in Brisbane.’’
The athletic American called her surge from a ranking of No. 957 in mid- 2017 to become the sport’s newest major winner in New York as an “insane’’ sequence of events.
Brisbane tennis fans were given a long look at the future of American women’s tennis when Stephens took a competitive two- set loss to Serena Williams at the 2013 Brisbane International.
Two weeks later, she upset Williams at the Australian Open and made her first Grand Slam semi- final, but sustained success proved difficult for her to grab.
World No. 2 Muguruza was ranked No. 1 for four weeks in September and October, before results left the year- end world No. 1 ranking in the possession of Romanian Simon Halep.
Muguruza and Stephens join Pliskova, the Brisbane defending champion, and Australian No. 1 Ash Barty in the Brisbane women’s field.
Stephens and Barty both play their last tournament of the year at the WTA Elite Trophy event in Zhuhai, China, starting today.
Barty, who is a nominee for the WTA comeback player of the year award likely to go to Stephens, is in a round- robin group with German Angelique Kerber and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.