Weird draw at the Toray PPO Tokyo tournament

I cannot understand how come Katarina Srebotnik (25th in the world) had to go through the qualifying matches whereas Shahar Peer (35th in the world) didn't have to. Neither has a wild card according to the draw.

Anybody can explain that to me?

Have a look at the draw:

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/3/global/includes/TrackIt.asp?file=http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/1/global/Pdfs/events/2008/tokyo1_draws.pdf

I'm gonna guess Peer committed a while ago and Srebotnik signed up too late so had to play Qualies.

entries are done 6 weeks before
Peer was ranked higher than Srebotnik until her US Open pts fell off

entries are done 6 weeks before
Peer was ranked higher than Srebotnik until her US Open pts fell off

I just noticed that Sugiyama(30), Schiavone(28) and Razzano(37) also went straight to the MD. Only Srebotnik had to qualify. Granted Razzano was ranked 27 six weeks ago but Srebotnik was 29 then. Still weird... Maybe as Ryan said it was because of her late commitment...

Sugiyama was in because of the "Gold Exempt on the next in MD list" rule.