Seventeen-year-old year old Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, the 2005 junior champion, who is in her first year on the tour, broke into the top 100 with some fine wins over Anastasia Myskina, Nicole Vaidisova and Jelena Jankovic.

In the ongoing Australian Open she reached the third round, with a win over Marion Bartoli before losing to Jankovic. Her performance at the Australian Open is likely to lift her to No 70 in the rankings.

Russian Anastasia Pavlychenkova, the 15-year-old reigning world junior champion, will play her first ever WTA tournament in Pattaya.

Both girls are double Grand Slam winners, having won the Australian and US Open junior titles.

The qualifying rounds will be held from February 3-5 with play beginning at 9am. Main draw matches will start from February 5 at 3pm daily. The final is due to be held on February 11.

Meanwhile, Australian tennis is in the hunt for the Next Big Thing as former golden boy Lleyton Hewitt struggles to stay in the top 20.

And tennis bosses think they've found their newest young gun in Queenslander Bernard Tomic.

The 14-year-old is the same age as many of the ballkids. He won his opening Australian Open junior match and such was the interest that he was given a post-match media conference with 23 media and several minders in attendance.

That compared to just one journalist who required a word with former US Open champion and third seed Svetlana Kuznetsoav of Russia after her third round loss on the women's side.

Tomic has been playing the game since age seven when his father brought home a racquet from a garage sale. He's now got an agent and a Nike contract at least a few years before he plays his first professional match.

The son of Croatian immigrants was born in Stuttgart as the family was in the process of moving to Australia.

As it currently stands, Melbourne Chris Guccione is the lone Aussie under the age of 25 who is ranked inside the top 250, and looks to be joined sooner rather than later by Tomic.