MEMPHIS (December 5) - Alexandra Stevenson and Paradorn Srichaphan have announced that they will play in next year's Kroger St. Jude Tennis Championships, scheduled for Feb. 14-23, 2003 at The Racquet Club of Memphis.

The tournament has also received early commitments from Anna Kournikova, defending men's singles champion Andy Roddick, defending women's singles champion Lisa Raymond, and last year's men's singles finalist James Blake.

Stevenson burst onto the scene in 1999 when she reached the semifinals at Wimbledon as a qualifier. And with her trademark big serves and punishing groundstrokes, she had little trouble reaching her first final in Memphis in February. She took the first set in 28 minutes before falling to Lisa Raymond in a thrilling third-set tiebreaker. She has continued to improve her game and ranking, moving from No. 60 in January to No. 18 after an impressive finish to the 2002 season that included wins over three top-10 players (No. 3 Jennifer Capriati, No. 6 Jelena Dokic and No. 9 Daniela Hantuchova).

Srichaphan's (pronounced SREE-sha-pan) story is much the same. After turning pro in 1997, he toiled in obscurity for years. But 2002 proved to be the break-out season for Thailand's favorite ambassador. Ranked No. 112 in January without a singles crown to his credit, he notched his first two titles this year - in Long Island and Stockholm - and along the way also defeated the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Marat Safin, Gustavo Kuerten and Tim Henman to reach his current rank of No. 15.

The player entry deadline for the Kroger St. Jude is Jan. 6.