WTA Tournament of Champions Kicks off in Sofia

The tournament in Sofia features eight tennis players, including Bulgaria’s Tsvetana Pironkova, Russia’s Maria Kirilenko and group leader Caroline Wozniacki. Photos by Sofia Photo Agency and sofia-tennis.bg

Bulgaria's capital Sofia will host the Tournament of the Champions for the first time October 30-November 4, a chance for tennis fans to enjoy some of the world's elite players.

Roberta Vinci and Daniela Hantuchova, the stars from Italy and Slovakia, will open the tournament at 4 pm in the modern Arena Armeec hall in downtown Sofia in front of a star-studded audience, including President Rosen Plevneliev, Bulgarian football players Dimitar Berbatov and Hristo Stoichkov, as well as Rory McIlroy, golf's world number one.

Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova will face off China's Jie Zheng in a match scheduled for 6.15 pm.

In the evening session former world number one Caroline Wozniacki from Denmark takes on Taiwan's Su-Wei Hsieh.

"I feel great in the hall. I am really happy that I will play in Bulgaria after all this time. I will be really glad if "Arena Armeec" is filled up on Tuesday for my match, and during the whole tournament," Pironkova commented for the official site of the tournament.

"I think that I am in good shape. This tournament was one of my major goals during the season. I don't think I am the most likely winner, all of the players here have come to win."

The tournament in Sofia features eight tennis players, two of whom received a "wild card" - the best Bulgarian female tennis star Tsvetana Pironkova and Russian Maria Kirilenko, who is No. 15 in the rankings.

Caroline Wozniacki, who began this year as Number one in the WTA rankings, is the group leader due to her high ranking in WTA, currently at No. 11.

The 2012 WTA Tournament of Champions is a singles-only tennis tournament that will be played on indoor hard courts in Sofia. It is the fourth edition of the tournament and is part of the 2012 WTA Tour.

The 2012 edition is the first to be held in Sofia, having been relocated from Bali, where the tournament was held for the previous three years and called the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions.

The former No. 4 in the WTA World rankings Magdalena Maleeva, who was the last Bulgarian who played the WTA Championships, has played a key part in bringing the prestigious tournament to Bulgaria.

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