The 19-year-old is the second seed for this week’s second renewal of the event, behind reigning Wimbledon women’s doubles champion Su-wei Hsieh.

Rajicic, who defeated Azra Hadzic in the final of last year’s tournament, has had a busy few months, reaching the semi-final stage of the Australian Open women’s singles wildcard play-offs at the weekend.

The Victorian, ranked in the top 300 in the world, will also play in the Ballarat Open Gold women’s double with younger sister Monika. The sisters are the top doubles seeds.

Meanwhile, big-serving Sam Groth won’t return to Ballarat in pursuit of back-to-back men’s singles titles.

This leaves the man he beat last year James Lemke as the number one ranked player in the main draw.

The 25-year-old Lemke, from Melbourne, is ranked 638 in the world. He will only play singles this week.

The Ballarat Open Gold AMT will run from Thursday to Sunday at the Ballarat Regional Tennis Centre.

SEEDED ENTRIES

(Australian unless otherwise specified)

MEN’S SINGLES

1 James Lemke, 2 Ryan Agar, 3 Rameez Junaid, 4 Daniel Byrnes, 5 Daniel Nolan, 6 Andrej Lukic, 7 Jade Culph, 8 Jeremy Beale.

WOMEN’S SINGLES

1 Su Wei Hsieh (Chinese Taipei), 2 Viktorija Rajicic, 3 Nives Baric, 4 Stefani Stojic, 5 Zoe Hives, 6 Sasha Alexandra Bollweg, 7 Monika Rajicic, 8 Jaide Collins.

MEN’S DOUBLES

1 Daniel Byrnes/Daniel Nolan, 2 Mitchell Burman/Jade Culph, 3 Jeremy Beale/Radomir Jovanovic, 4 Yvonnick L’Hurriec/Vincent Stouff (France), 5 Andrej Lukic/Marshall Street, 6 Mario Matejcek/Chanchai Sookton-Eng, 7 Cody Brackenreg/Daniel Nickels, 8 Liam Goldberg/Justyn Levin, 9 Jake Faundez/Jack Lyttle, 10 Nicholas Cipri/John Giakoumakis, 11 Elliot Johnstone/Ross Marzetti, 12 Yani Kimon Doumanis/Themi Sitzoukis, 13 Marcel Jean-Pierre Du Sart/Omar Fields, 14 Martyn Icke/Lucas Vuradin, 15 

Jake Mckenzie/Thomas Paterson, 16 Regan More/Matthew Romios.

WOMEN’S DOUBLES

1 Monika Rajicic/Viktorija Rajicic, 2 Sasha Alexandra Bollweg/Danielle Mcintyre, 3 Jaide Collins/Romy Stephens, 4 Zoe Hives/Eliza Long.

tim.oconnor@fairfaxmedia.com.au