In-form Suarez Navarro to challenge in Malaysia

CarlaSuarezNavarro - Cropped

Carla Suarez Navarro will be looking to turn her good form into a much-deserved title at the Malaysian Open.

The Spanish world number 17 has made a tremendous start to 2015, winning 13 of 18 matches in the opening two months.

Only a shock first-round exit at the Australian Open blemishes what has been a good year so far.

Suarez Navarro reached the quarter-finals in Brisbane and Sydney before being runner-up in Antwerp, where she withdrew before the decider against Andrea Petkovic due to a neck problem.

But she showed few signs of that injury on her way to the last eight in Dubai and semi-finals in Doha.

Suarez Navarro will be eager to build on those performances as the second seed at the WTA International event played on hard courts in Kuala Lumpur.

Caroline Wozniacki is the top seed and she is coming into the tournament after a quarter-final loss to Victoria Azarenka in Doha.

German Sabine Lisicki and Australian Casey Dellacqua make up the top four seeds.

Jarmila Gajdosova, Klara Koukalova, Kurumi Nara and Bojana Jovanovski are the other seeds in what is a relatively weak field.

Lisicki is usually a danger but her start to the year has included just one win.

The German beat Monica Niculescu in Dubai, with her losses in 2015 coming to Yaroslava Shvedova, Suarez Navarro, Kristina Mladenovic, Ana Ivanovic and Barbora Zahlavova Strycova.

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