Victoria Azarenka:
After capturing back to back titles at the Sony Ericsson Open (Miami) and the Andalucía Tennis Experience (Marbella), and finishing as a runner-up at the Mutua Madrid Open and reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon, Azarenka has risen to a career-best ranking of World No.3, the highest singles ranking ever achieved by a Belarusian. 2011 will mark the 22-year-old’s third successive appearance at the Championships, where she is yet to advance past the round-robin stage. Azarenka is also in the running to qualify for the doubles competition with partner Maria Kirilenko of Russia .
Petra Kvitova:
In a career-best season for the 21-year-old Czech, she defeated Maria Sharapova to win her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon and become the youngest major title winner in more than three years. She also captured titles at the Brisbane International, the Open GDF SUEZ (Paris) and the Mutua Madrid Open. Kvitova is expected to make her Top 5 debut next week after reaching the semifinals of Toray PPO Tennis ( Tokyo ). Jana Novotna was the last Czech to compete in singles at the Championships in 1998.
