2010 Australian Open - Women's Singles Draw Predictions

Three of the four finalists for the Sydney and Hobart tournaments were in my favorite list. Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva contested the Sydney title, and Shahar Peer reached the Hobart finals. I intentionally left out the Bondarenko sisters in favor of other players – so I can't claim 100% success rate this time. The bad thing about predicting achievers in a tournament is that you put yourself in a situation where you could be totally wrong. The good thing about it? It's fun, fun, and fun.

For the first grand slam of the year, I decided to do the following per quadrant (a) pick three seeds that will perform the best; (b) pick a seed that will underperform; and (c) pick an unseeded player that is most likely to achieve in that part of the draw. Here are my predictions:

Top Half – 1st Quadrant

Top Performers: #1 Serena Williams, #20 Ana Ivanovic, #7 Victoria Azarenka
Will Not Meet Seeding: #13 Samantha Stosur
Unseeded Surprise: Kimiko Date Krumm

Top Half – 2nd Quadrant

Top Performers: #6 Venus Williams, #16 Na Li, #14 Caroline Wozniacki
Will Not Meet Seeding: #10 Agnieszka Radwanska
Unseeded Surprise: Alicia Molik

Bottom Half – 3rd Quadrant

Top Performers: #15 Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, #26 Aravane Rezai
Will Not Meet Seeding: #3 Svetlana Kuznetsova
Unseeded Surprise: Justine Henin

Bottom Half – 4th Quadrant

Top Performers: #2 Dinara Safina, #14 Maria Sharapova, #11 Marion Bartoli
Will Not Meet Seeding: #8 Jelena Jankovic
Unseeded Surprise: Shuai Peng

Top 3 Favorites to Win the Title:

1. Serena Williams – hard to bet against the defending champion. She would be highly motivated to win with the Belgians back in the fold. The only concern is the injury that didn't allow her to move well against Dementieva.

2. Kim Clijsters – she's on the other side of the draw from Serena Williams. If she gets to play Kuznetsova and Henin back-to-back just to reach the semifinals, she my be too tired to face the winner of the Safina – Sharapova quadrant.

3. Dinara Safina – why is she ranked so high? She's beaten Sharapova twice in grand slam fourth round matches though this was at the French Open. And, the other bottom half quadrant is just so loaded with tough players that they'll wear each other out before they reach the semifinals.