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Your guide to the 2016 Australian summer of tennis (Part 3)

Roar Guru
30th December, 2015
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Roger Federer continued his comeback by winning Indian Wells. (Georgios Kefalas/Keystone via AP)
Roar Guru
30th December, 2015
1

The new year is just around the corner and that can only mean one thing – the Australian summer of tennis is not too far away.

Some of the world’s biggest names, including women’s heavyweights Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova, as well as the legendary Roger Federer are set to start their preparations for the first Grand Slam event of 2016, the Australian Open.

This preview will be divided into three parts. In Part I, I covered the Brisbane International, the Hopman Cup and the Shenzhen Open, and in Part II I covered the Aircel Chennai Open, the Qatar ExxonMobil Open and the Auckland Open.

Here, in Part III, I will cover the Sydney International, the Hobart International and of course, the Australian Open.

Let’s take a look at some of the events that tennis fans will be treated to as the countdown begins to the start of the Australian Open on January 18.

Sydney International
January 10-16
Defending champions: Viktor Troicki and Petra Kvitova
Drawcards: Bernard Tomic, Grigor Dimitrov, Sam Groth, Simona Halep, Agnieszka Radwanska, Petra Kvitova and Samantha Stosur.

Australia’s top-ranked male player, Bernard Tomic, has the honour of being the top seed for the Sydney International, a tournament where he has done very well in recent years, winning the title in 2013 and then finishing runner-up to Juan Martin del Potro twelve months later.

He is the first local man since Lleyton Hewitt in 2006 to be given top billing, and it will only mean that the pressure will be on him to perform well ahead of the Australian Open, where he will be seeded for the first time.

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Other than Tomic, former Wimbledon semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov, defending champion Viktor Troicki and Sam Groth are also among the male participants at Sydney’s Olympic Park.

Women’s world number two Simona Halep will headline a strong list for the women, which also includes defending champion Petra Kvitova, 2013 champion Agnieszka Radwanska, French Open finalist Lucie Safarova and local hope Samantha Stosur.

Radwanska and Kvitova will touch down in Sydney fresh off having just played in Shenzhen, where they are the top two seeds and there’s a possibility that they may have just faced off in the final.

Thus, there’s the chance that they could again face off deep in the tournament, but top seed Halep, who pulled out at the last minute in 2015 due to illness, will be out to stop one of them from reaching the final.

Hobart International
January 10-16
Defending champion: Heather Watson
Drawcards: Sloane Stephens, Dominika Cibulkova and Alize Cornet.

While some of the world’s top fifteen women contest a strong field at the Sydney International, some of the lower-ranked players will touch down on the Apple Isle at the lower-level Hobart International.

Former Australian Open semi-finalist Sloane Stephens, ranked 30th in the world, is the top seed; with every other player from Camila Giorgi (second seed, 35th) down set to be no hope of being seeded for the first Grand Slam of the new year.

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Third seed Dominika Cibulkova is also another one to watch out for, as she continues her comeback from an Achilles injury which forced her to miss the French Open and sent her ranking plummeting out of the top 50. The former Australian Open finalist is also coming off her first title-less season since 2010.

The Slovak did, however, take some notable scalps towards the end of the year, including defeating Ana Ivanovic (twice, at the US Open and in Tokyo) and Jelena Jankovic (in Beijing) within a month.

Thus, despite her lowly ranking, she shapes as a serious contender for the title in Hobart, as do Stephens and Frenchwoman Alize Cornet.

Australian Open
January 18-31
Defending champions: Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams
Drawcards: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza, Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova.

Finally, two weeks (or perhaps more) of intense preparation for the new tennis season will culminate in 256 singles players descending onto Melbourne Park for the first Grand Slam tournament of the new year – the Australian Open.

Men’s world number one Novak Djokovic will be out to extend his dominance Down Under with an unprecedented sixth title, however it will not come easy given the challenges that are expected to be posed by the four men behind him in the rankings: Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal.

Murray will be hoping that it’s fifth time lucky at Melbourne Park, having lost four finals since 2010, the last three (2011, 2013 and 2015) to Novak Djokovic and the other (2010) to Roger Federer.

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The Scot is coming off an impressive season in which he won two Masters titles, defeating Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic to win in Madrid and Montreal respectively, finished as world number two for the first time, and led Great Britain to its first Davis Cup title since 1936.

Federer, a shock third-round loser to Andreas Seppi last year, has added Ivan Ljubicic to his coaching team as he attempts to end what is currently his longest Grand Slam title drought and win that elusive 18th major title.

Wawrinka will arrive Down Under eager to win a third Grand Slam title, having won here in 2014 and also at last year’s French Open.

If the last three drawsheets are anything to go by, then there’s the chance he could meet Novak Djokovic in the final – they met in the fourth round in 2013, the quarter-finals in 2014 and the semi-finals last year, with each match lasting five sets.

Thus, how appropriate would it be if they meet in the final this year, and don’t be surprised if it again goes the distance.

Rafael Nadal will attempt once again to win a second Australian Open title, with the Spaniard enduring an unhappy ending on each of his last five trips Down Under since winning in 2009, in addition to missing the 2013 tournament due to injury.

In the women’s, all eyes will be on world number one Serena Williams as she attempts to emulate Steffi Graf’s 1988 season, in which she swept the Grand Slam calendar and won the Olympic gold medal in Seoul.

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The American can make the Australian Open her most successful Grand Slam tournament, with a seventh title hers for the taking. It would have to take an off-day for her not to win, as was the case in 2012, 2013 and 2014 when she failed to reach the semi-finals in either year despite being heavily favoured.

Among those that will hope to knock the 34-year-old off her perch include world number two Simona Halep, third seed Garbine Muguruza, 2008 champion Maria Sharapova, dual Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and dual Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, among many others.

Halep and Muguruza, ranked second and third in the world respectively, will be out to continue their strong recent performances at Melbourne Park, the former having reached the quarter-finals and the latter the fourth round in the last two years.

Sharapova, who is coming off an injury-ravaged 2015 season, will hope to win a second title Down Under to compliment the 2008 title which she won in dominant fashion, not dropping a set or even being forced into a tiebreak en route that year.

Two-time champion Victoria Azarenka will hope that the surroundings inspire her to a third title, the Belarussian having endured two injury-ravaged seasons without a tournament victory since finishing as world number two in 2013.

And fifth-seed Petra Kvitova will be out to prove that she can perform well outside the surroundings of Wimbledon, where she has historically enjoyed her best Grand Slam results. The Czech left-hander was a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park in 2012 but has not gone that far, let alone reached the fourth round, since.

A full preview of the Australian Open, in which the men’s and women’s contenders will be previewed in full detail, will be provided prior to the tournament’s start.

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And that’s the full preview of the 2016 Australian summer of tennis, which I hope you will enjoy as much as I will.

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