Petrova is set to become the second seed for the tournament behind compatriot and world No 4 Elena Dementieva, while the tournament also boasts Danish world No 12 Caroline Wozniacki.
Petrova vowed she would return to New Zealand after making the semifinals of the tournament in 2006 and since that time has gone on to reach a career high ranking of No 3 as well as excelling in Grand Slams.
Petrova has reached the quarterfinals or better on all four Grand Slam surfaces, making the semifinals of the French Open twice -- 2003 and 2005 -- as well as the quarters at the Australian Open in 2006.
She also made her way to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 2005 and 2008 and the quarters at the US Open in 2004 and 2005.
After a slow start to 2008 she finished the year on a high, making the WTA Championship in Doha as an alternate and managed to make the quarterfinals or better at ten of her last 14 events of the year.
In her final regular WTA event of the year she won her ninth singles title by beating American Bethanie Mattek in the final at Quebec, Canada, just two weeks ago.
At her previous visit to the ASB Classic the then world No 9 was forced to retire with injury in the third set of her semifinal against Marion Bartoli of France.
ASB Classic tournament director Brenda Perry was estatic to have secured quality players for the tournament from January 5-10.
"To have the No11 ranked player in the world is the very best we could possibly have hoped for, given that the ASB Classic is permitted to have just one top-10 player in the field and we already have Elena Dementieva," Perry said.
"The addition of Petrova at 11 with Wozniacki at 12 means the ASB Classic now has a trio of the world's leading women tennis stars ranked 4, 11 and 12, which is really fantastic."
The full player list will be announced on November 26.
