Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna have been given direct entry for this year's Hopman Cup on the basis of their surprise good show in the last edition of the event.
MELBOURNE: Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna have been given direct entry for this year's Hopman Cup on the basis of their surprise good show in the last edition of the event.
The duo is the fourth team to be given direct entry for the 20th edition of the tournament slated from December 29 to January 4 in Perth.
Last year, India qualified for the event after winning the inaugural Asian Hopman Cup. They went on to upset Croatia and the Czech Republic before a loss to Spain prevented them from reaching the final.
Sania and Bopanna were undefeated in the mixed doubles and finished second in their group last year, which led to the organisers extending a direct invite to the pair this time.
"I am delighted to invite India directly into the field. It's a just reward for their challenge last year and for Sania's considerable progress this year," Tournament Director Paul McNamee said.
"Sania is a bona fide superstar in India and at only 20 years of age is on target to reach her goal of being the first Indian woman in the top 20," he added.
However, Sania has not been having the best of times of late. She was recently struggling with a wrist injury and has dropped to 30th in WTA rankings this week.
Though Sania had a brilliant run at the US hard courts this summer -- beating the likes of Martina Hingis, Dinara Safina, Shahar Peer and Patty Schnyder -- but her form has been inconsistent since then.
After her return to the WTA tour following her recovery from the wrist injury, she has suffered two back-to-back first round exits -- in Kremlin Cup and this week's Zurich Open.
In contrast, Bopanna has had a successful year on the Challenger circuit winning a singles tournament in Dublin and five doubles titles which propelled him to 86th in the ATP doubles ranking.
Apart from the four teams, the Asian Hopman cup winners will be the fifth side in the annual event in Perth.
Other Hopman Cup teams are: Novak Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic (Serbia), Tomas Berdych and Lucie Safarova (Czech Republic), Gael Monfils and Tatiana Golovin (France).
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