By Chris Davies
April 14 2003

Justine Henin-Hardenne plays Bausch & Lomb Championships this week and looks the hot favourite to win the tournament which she came close to last year Henin-Hardenne reached last years final losing to Venus Williams 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 which the world number 4 felt should have won. Venus chose not to defend her title and consequently meant she has now dropped to number 3 in the rankings allowing Kim Clijsters to reach the number 2 for the first time in her career.

The Belgian faces an easy draw considering the other players form over recent weeks and beating Serena Williams after 21 straight matches.

Monica Seles returns from her foot injury and possibly could meet Henin-Hardenne at the quarter-final stage. Hantuchova, Dechy, Fernandez, Coetzer, Stevenson and Dementieva are the other featured seeds in the top half.

The bottom half features Jelena Dokic who showed some form last week by reaching the quarter-finals losing to Serena Williams.

Lindsay Davenport will be looking to continue her good form on the green clay and a possible semi-final with Jennifer Capriati who has overcome her throat infection which forced her to withdraw from last weeks Family Circle Cup.

There should be no problems for the two Amercians to reach the semi-final with Lisa Raymond, Paola Suarez, Patty Schnyder, Meghann Shaughnessy and Conchita Martinez looking for an upset early on.

195 ranking points are available for the winner with $93,000 prize money.