Amanda Sobhy is set for her first professional tournament of the season this week in Shanghai, China, where she is seeded fourth in the $58, 000 PSA Stars on the Bund China Open.
The recent Pan American Games triple gold medalist will face Malaysian qualifier Delia Arnold in the first round Thursday at 2pm local time, 2am ET.
The twenty-two-year-old American dropped to world No. 19 from world No. 10 in September’s rankings with a low number of tournaments factoring into the rankings algorithm. Arnold, however, reached a career-high of world No. 12 this month boosted by reaching the semifinals of May’s British Open as a qualifier and reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open last month.
The winner of Thursday’s match will advance to face either Malaysian wild card Teh Min Jie, or eighth-seeded Emma Beddoes Friday.
The China Open is Sobhy’s first of a string of tournaments this fall. The Harvard graduate is the top seed in the NetSuite Open later this month in San Francisco, before heading to Philadelphia for the first world series tournament of the season—the Delaware Investments U.S. Open at Drexel University, October 8-17.
For more information on the China Open, visit the official tournament page.