Really, not strange at all. Both of the Serbian ladies are allready committed to other event$. Jelena is part of this new Hong Kong Challenge (replacing Watson Water, which has paid players such as Maria over 1Million to apppear in the past) that is featuring 4 teams of three representing different corners of the world (Venus, Sania and Maria Sharapova are the other team captains) - it runs Jan 7-10, which conflicts directly with the Hopman Final. and Ana (and Novak) were announced as the first pros committed to the Brisbane International, which is a new event on the calendar. It's a combined mens/womens event, replacing Adelaide and Gold Coast. Ana has family in Australia, and loves playing there, and I'm $ure the Brisbane organizers wanted to en$ure they had a big name for their debut, and were quite per$ua$ive when it came to Ana.