EVGENIYA Rodina faces the toughest of challenges if she is to retain her Aegon Ilkley Trophy women's singles title on June 17-25.

With the prize-money for the ITF Women's Futures tournament being doubled to $100,000, the 28-year-old Russian is in a field containing 12 other players who are ranked inside the world's top 100.

The Muscovite is only the fifth-highest ranked player at 80 in an entry that is led by world No 56 Oceane Dodin from France.

A total of 17 direct entries into the women's singles at Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club played in the first round of the French Open, with nine reaching the second round and one – 2015 Ilkley finalist Magda Linette of Poland – bowing out in the last 32.

The cut-off for direct entry at Ilkley is as low as 113, with that player, Belgium's Alison van Uytvanck, almost making it to the third round in Paris after taking the opening set off ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska.

Following Dodin, who won the Coupe Banque Nationale tournament in Quebec last September on the main WTA Tour, are Viktorija Golubic (world No 65, Switzerland), Yanina Wickmayer (69, Belgium) and former world No 9 Andrea Petkovic (79, Germany).

Rounding out the top-100 entries after Rodina are Pauline Parmentier (81, France), Americans Madison Brengle (82) and Julia Boserup (85), Ekaterina Alexandrova (86, Russia), Kurumi Nara (90, Japan), Linette (94), Kristina Kucova (95, Slovakia) and Maria Sakkari (99, Greece).

Completing the excellent main draw line-up are Tatjana Maria (102, Germany), Denisa Allertova (104, Czech Republic), Ana Bogdan (106, Romania), joint No 108s Kai-Chen Chang (Taipei) and Magdalena Rybarikova (Slovakia), Chinese duo Lin Zhu (110) and Xinyun Han (111) and Belgians Maryna Zanevska (112) and van Uytvanck.

To show how much the tournament has moved on, Allertova was top seed last year, but is now only the 15th highest ranked.

ILTSC's general manager Charlie Maunder said: "It's fantastic to see that in just three years since the tournament came to Ilkley, we are now attracting such an incredible line-up of women to the club."

The winner will receive a wild card into the women's singles at Wimbledon.

Tickets can be purchased online at https://www.lta.org.uk/major-events/aegon-trophy-series/aegon-ilkley-trophy/tickets/

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