Lulu Sun of New Zealand, Mananchaya Sawangkaew and Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand, Sohyun Park of Korea and Joanna Garland of Taiwan will be some of the leading players in action in the Billie Jean King Cup Asia-Oceania Group-1 women’s tennis tournament to be played at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune from April 8 to 12.
The absence of strong teams like Japan, China and Uzbekistan may inspire some confidence in the Indian ranks but the team will have its task cut out in its attempt to win one of the two qualification spots from the region.
Ankita Raina, Sahaja Yamalapalli, Shrivalli Bhamidipaty and Vaidehi Chaudhari are ranked between 300 and 358. With the 137th-ranked doubles specialist Prarthana Thombare lending interesting options to the team, India would be keen to emulate its earlier best effort of qualifying to the play-off under the captaincy of Vishal Uppal.
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Lulu Sun is ranked 44 in the world and will be backed by Monique Barry and Aishi Das for New Zealand.
Thailand has two strong players in Mananchaya and Lanlana, ranked 111 and 173 respectively. Thasaporn Naklo, Patcharin Cheapchandej and the doubles specialist Peangtarn Plipuech do pack a punch.
Taiwan will be spearheaded by Joanna Garland, ranked 212. Ya-Hsuan Lee, Yi-Tsen Cho, Fang-An lIn and Fang Hsien Wu may not have impressive ranking to boast, but the team combines strongly, especially in doubles.
Sohyun Park may be ranked 310 but showed her ability in the recent international events in India, winning one title. Dayeon Back, Eunhye Lee, Boyoung Jeong and Kim Dabin will be the other members of Korea.
Hong Kong will have Hong Yi Cody Wong and Eudice Chong, ranked 350 and 356 respectively in singles. The two combine remarkably well in doubles, and have won more than a dozen doubles titles together as a pair on the professional circuit.
Ho Ching Wu, Man Ying Maggie Ng, Justine Leong will be the other players in the Hong Kong team.