Saturday 11 January 2014

Aus Open Draw has Serena smiling

While Australian players are left wondering how many mirrors they must have broken and how many ladders they must have walked under in the past 12 months in order to receive such a walloping in the Australian Open Draw Ceremony (home Grand Slam event advantage - that's a laugh),  the seeded players have spent their first nights post-Draw pondering the possible paths left them en route to glory or disaster.

Let us have a clinical look at some of the match ups, should things go according to rankings, or in a few cases according to our hearts.

Ladies first - Starting at the top, Serena Williams is in what I will call the quieter half of the draw, and her first round opponent is Australia's Ash Barty who is claiming (using all the spin of a wily politician) that she is excited by the prospect of a match with the best.  The prospect of course is defeat, and the young and extremely talented teenager clearly would have loved the clash with Serena to have been somewhat later in the Open.

The top seed was none to pleased that her compatriot and upstart Sloane Stephens removed her from proceedings in the quarter final last year, so to see the young American on the bottom (noisier) side of the draw puts paid to a repeat of that nonsense at least until the final.

Serena is seeded to play Hantuchova in the third round and Ana Ivanovic in the fourth round.  However, Australians want Samantha Stosur to be that round of sixteen opponent.  It becomes messy here, because Sam first needs to win her opening match, a task often proved to be difficult here.  Stosur just lost to her first round opponent, Klara Zakopalova, in Hobart's semis in straight sets and even if she manages to reverse that result in Melbourne, her second round opponent will likely be the winner of the just completed Sydney event, Tsvetana Pironkova - Pironkova defeated Errani, Kvitova and Kerber to win that title.  Ana Ivanovic won in Auckland last week so all of the form in the first three rounds is against Samantha.

Why am I even talking about this though?  Serena Williams will be playing whoever happens to win through all of that drama and end the tournament for that person there and then.

Sara Errani is drawn to be the quarter final "threat" to Serena's assault on Aus Open number 6, and at her best she hasn't sufficient weapons to pose a concern.  Making it worse for Sara is her form coming into Melbourne which hasn't inspired one bit.

The fun is deciding the Williams semi final opponent, and the money would have to be for 4th seed Li Na, who impressed so much at the end of 2013 and is already a winner this year.  She has drawn Kvitova or Kerber in her quarter final, but may first have to sneak past Venus Williams who is the dangerous unseeded player looming as a fourth round fly in the ointment for the 2011 and 2013 runner up.  The Auckland form of the older sister is reason enough to watch her progress with interest.

From the top (quieter) section of the draw, my prediction is a semi final according to the seedings, with Serena Williams perhaps taking 3 sets to overcome Li Na.

Now to the noisier part of the draw.  The top half of the bottom half is the Sharapova quarter.  We know that the number 3 seed has a great record over many years at the Aus Open. winning in 2008, twice a finalist and three times semi finalist.

Her hardest match in the first week is probably her first round clash with in form American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.  Other than that 16th seed Carla Suarez Navarro in the fourth round will pose more problems for the scoreboard than for Maria as the Russian screams into another quarter final.  Her Brisbane form was surprising, considering the length of time out of the game, and her hunger must be as great as ever.

Meeting Maria in the quarters is scheduled to be 8th seed Jelena Jankovic, my favourite player, and naturally my heart wants that match-up to occur.  On paper, it is a reasonably friendly draw for the Serbian former semi finalist here (that was 2008 and never past the 4th round apart from that) but Simona Halep is the probable fourth round opponent, and Halep had a huge 2013, winning multiple tournaments.  Also lurking in this part of the draw is unseeded former top ten player Andrea Petkovic whose match against Serena in Brisbane suggested that her best tennis could cause some seeded players plenty of worry.

Ultimately I believe that Maria Sharapova will cruise into the semi final, probably by defeating Jankovic, though I hope I lose my money on this one.

The bottom half of the bottom half features the number 2 seed Vika Azarenka, and she is in the sort of form that enabled her to win the past 2 Australian Opens.  Her draw is one of the reasons you can see her smiling wherever she is spotted in Melbourne at the moment.

Nothing is troubling her until a likely fourth round clash with Sloane Stephens, and many of us remember last year's semi final clash between the two where Vika became very much the "bad girl" following her controversial medical timeout which appeared to change the momentum of the second set.
Should they meet, Stephens will no doubt win the hearts of the crowd again, but that will be all she wins.

Azarenka will play either Radwanska or Wozniacki in the quarters because I honestly believe that section of the draw to be very soft, and barring big upsets, Aga and Caro should waltz through to their 10th meeting - Caro leads 5-4 but has lost the past 3.

As with the top half of the draw, I am predicting the seedings to play out, with this semi final featuring a record attempt on the decibels reached in a match between 2 players.  Vika and Maria to slug it out and Vika to rule.  They have a decent rivalry building - 13 times they have met with Azarenka ahead 7-6.  Maria has won the past two, but importantly the only time they've played at the Australian Open was the 2012 final which Vika won in a canter.

Basically I can only see the result of this Australian Open being the first leg of a possible calendar Grand Slam for Serena Williams, and further proof that while Vika is clearly the second best player on this planet, Serena is the dominant player in the known universe. 

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