THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MELBOURNE, Australia -- Roger Federer will join former Australian Open champion Marat Safin and 2006 finalist Marcos Baghdatis in the eight-man Kooyong invitational tournament the week before the season's first Grand Slam in January.
Federer missed this year's Kooyong event this year with a stomach virus, and lost in the semifinals at the Australian Open to Novak Djokovic. Federer went on to lose his No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal after the Spaniard beat him in the French Open and Wimbledon finals.
Safin won the Australian Open in 2005. Others confirmed to play at Kooyong -- the former home of the Australian Open before it moved to Melbourne Park -- from Jan. 14 to 17 are Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, American James Blake, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile and Latvian Ernests Gulbis.
The eighth player will be named later, said tournament director Colin Stubs.
The tournament attracts top players by offering guaranteed matches in the round-robin format ahead of the Australian Open rather than the risk of elimination in other lead-up tournaments. Stubs said Thursday he believes Nadal plans to rest the week before the Australian Open, which runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 1.
"At the moment Nadal is probably going to do that although he's got a fairly good reason, he's got some bad knee problems and he doesn't want to extend himself physically a week before a Grand Slam, which is fair enough," said Stubs.
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