MORE than 80 female tennis stars from 18 different countries are at the Mission Hills Country Club in Shenzhen’s Longhua New Area this week, competing for the Shenzhen leg of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Women’s Tour.

    Headlining the draw for the US$100,000 event are the two-time women’s doubles Grand Slam champions, Peng Shuai of China and Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-wei.

    Peng and Hsieh combined to win the women’s doubles at Wimbledon in 2013 and again at the 2014 French Open but the duo will be on opposite sides of the net when the main singles competition gets underway today. The singles final will conclude Saturday and the doubles Sunday.

    The former world number one doubles pair are joined in the draw by top seed Wang Qiang of China. The 24-year old from Tianjin is currently ranked 70 in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and won the singles title for China at the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea.

    Speaking at the opening ceremony, Tenniel Chu, vice chairman of the Mission Hills Group, said: “Mission Hills has been passionate about the development of tennis in China — we hosted a Davis Cup qualifier in 1999 and teamed up with Michael Chang in 2007.”

    Chu also referred to the recent partnership between Mission Hills and three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker in a bid to nurture a growing tennis population. (SD-Agencies)