Tournament Picks - Sydney and Hobart

In a blog post last week, four of my tournament picks ended up in the finals of both the Brisbane and Auckland tournament (see Tournament Picks – Brisbane and Auckland). While I don't believe in beginner's luck, I'm still very encouraged by the result. Below are my picks for the Sydney and Hobart tournaments.

Medibank International Sydney:

Top Half Seeds: Serena Williams (#1 seed), Caroline Wozniacki (#4)
Bottom Half Seeds: Svetlana Kuznetsova (#3), Elena Dementieva (#5)
Unseeded: Samantha Stosur, Sabine Lisicki

Notes: The only top four seed I didn't pick is world #2 Dinara Safina and that's because of her recent injury. Of the unseeded players, I picked local favorite Sam Stosur and Sabine Lisicki. Lisicki won two of her three singles matches in last week's Hopman Cup including a straight set demolition of world #5 Dementieva. Stosur is the world's #13 but due to the strength of the field (9 of top 10 players present), she is unseeded. If she beats Pennetta in the first round, she has a good chance to advance even against #4 Wozniacki.

Potential Interesting Match-up: The highly anticipated 2nd round match-up between Justine Henin and Serena Williams is off the air with the late withdrawal of Henin. I'd like to see Demetieva and Williams in the final to see if they can come up with a match at par with their Wimbledon 2009 semifinals.

MOORILLA Hobart International:

Top Half Seeds: Annabel Medina Garrigues (#1 seed), Jie Zheng (#7)
Bottom Half Seeds: Shahar Peer (#2), Aleksandra Wozniak (#6)
Unseeded: Jelena Dokic, Alize Cornet

Notes: For my seeded picks, I picked Zheng of China over Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine because of her grand slam accomplishments. I also picked Wozniak of Canada over the other Bondarenko because she has previously won a higher level tournament. For the unseeded picks, I chose Dokic over former top 10 player Alicia Molik and promising American teenager, Melanie Oudin in the bottom half of the draw. Former top20 player Cornet is my unseeded pick in the top half of the draw.

Potential Interesting Match-up: Bondarenko vs Bondarenko in the final.