Andy Murray heads the cast at the St. Petersburg Open in Russia early next week. The world No.4 will be hoping to successfully defend the title he won last year by virtue of a straight-sets win against Spaniard Fernando Verdasco. St. Petersburg represented Murray’s third singles title and he has since gone on to claim four more (Doha, Marseille, Cincinnati and now Madrid).

With the tennis season about to reach its climax, opportunities to end the 2008 campaign on a high note are few and far between and you can be sure that the field in St. Petersburg will be aiming to close out the year on a positive note before the off-season.

Murray won’t be the only past champion playing at this year’s event; a strong cast includes former champions such as Mikhail Youzhny, Mario Ancic and two-time winner Marat Safin. Unfortunately the presence of another two-time champion, Sweden’s Thomas Johansson, has been curtailed due to injury.

As expected there will be a strong Russian presence at the event, aside from Youzhny and Safin. world No.5 Nikolay Davydenko has played the event every year since 2003, but has thus far failed to go beyond the last eight, and he’ll surely want to put that right this year as he looks towards to the Paris Masters Series and season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai.

In fact, all of Russia’s Davis Cup regulars (apart from Igor Andreev) will be playing at the event, including Dmitry Tursunov and recent Moscow champion Igor Kunitsyn. Evgeny Korolev makes up what will be a strong Russian challenge this year and if the man holding the trophy at the end of the week isn’t Murray, there’s more than a fair chance that one of the Russian contingent will be.

This year represents a strong field, including talented youngsters Marin Cilic of Croatia and Latvia's Ernest Gulbis. Cilic reached the last four in St. Petersburg in 2007. This year’s surprise Wimbledon semi-finalist Rainer Schuettler will also be competing. The German reached the St. Petersburg final in 2001 before losing out to Safin.