Several of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour’s brightest young stars will head to the landlocked central Asian country of Uzbekistan this week for the 2007 Tashkent Open. The high-flying Victoria Azarenka will top the bill at the $145,000, Tier IV event, but with her fellow teenagers Dominika Cibulkova and Olga Govortsova also in the draw she is sure to be pushed hard for the title.

Azarenka is one of the game’s brightest young stars and will view this week as a golden opportunity to capture her maiden title. The 18-year-old Belarusian has enjoyed an encouraging season on Tour to date, finishing runner-up in Prague, making her maiden Grand Slam fourth round appearance at the US Open and subsequently breaking into the Top 40. Azarenka lost to eventual champion Sun Tiantian in the semifinals at the Tashkent Tennis Centre 12 months ago and will be eager to improve on this when she gets her campaign underway against Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-Wei.

No.2 seed Cibulkova is another player to have made significant strides this season and arrives in the Uzbek capital fresh from a maiden Tour semifinal finish in Guanghou last week. At last year’s Tashkent Open the 18-year-old Slovak battled her way through qualifying, before falling to Azarenka in the second round and she will be confident on bettering this performance when she kicks off her title challenge against France’s Pauline Parmentier.

This week’s draw is a youthful one and only one of the seeds in Uzbekistan is over 21-year-old. Belarusian teenager and No.3 seed Olga Govortsova has been one of the biggest movers in the rankings this year and after starting the year at No.334, currently sits just outside the Top 50. The remaining seeds are comprised of the ever-improving Romanian Ioana Raluca Olaru (No.5), the popular Russian Elena Vesnina (No.4) and her compatriots Alla Kudryavtseva (No.6), Olga Poutchkova (No.7) and Guanghou semifinalist Anastasia Rodionova (No.8).

This is the 12th staging of the Tashkent Open and players to have lifted the trophy in the past include Michaella Krajicek (2005), Nicole Vaidisova (2004), Virginia Ruano Pascual (2003), Iroda Tulyaganova (2000) and Anna Smashnova (1999). The winner this year will receive $21,165, while the runner-up takes home $11,395.