Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova sign up for inaugural Wuhan Open

The WTA has made no secret of its desire to get a firm foothold in China by adding a new Premier 5 tournament Wuhan this fall. The tournament has announced that

Courtney Nguyen | Jul 18, 2014

Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova sign up for inaugural Wuhan Open /

The WTA has made no secret of its desire to get a firm foothold in China by adding a new Premier 5 tournament Wuhan this fall. The tournament has announced that No. 1 Serena Williams has signed on to the tournament, which begins two weeks after the U.S. Open on September 21st. The tournament has also received confirmations from all three of this year's Slam champions -- No. 2 Li Na, No. 5 Petra Kvitova and No. 6 Maria Sharapova. The event marks the first time Li will be able to play a WTA-level event in her hometown.

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The Wuhan Open will replace the Tokyo Open as the sole Premier 5 tournament in Asia, joining the mandatory China Open in Beijing as the two biggest WTA tournaments on the continent. It also extends the tennis season in China to four weeks, starting with the WTA event in Guangzhou and ending with the ATP's Shanghai Masters.

The fall Asian swing also expands this year with Singapore hosting the season-ending WTA Championships for the first time.

Published Jul 18, 2014

COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.