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Tennis News :: Australian Tennis Open Womens Singles Betting

Posted on 2009-01-15 by Gooner

On the women’s side, defending champion Maria Sharapova is already out of the running; the shoulder injury that took her out of last year’s Olympics and U.S. Open has yet to heal properly.

That leaves the two Williams sisters as the leading candidates to win in Melbourne.

Serena Williams is the top seed at this week’s warm-up WTA event in Sydney, the Medibank International.

Venus Williams is idle this week; she’s never won the Australian Open, while Serena has taken this event three times, most recently in 2007.

The hardcourt at Melbourne Park is a Plexicushion surface (specifically, the Plexicushion Prestige) that made its debut at last year’s event, replacing the old Rebound Ace surface that was criticized for overheating and causing ankle injuries.

The slower Plexicushion surface (slow for a hardcourt, that is) doesn’t help Serena exploit her strong volleys; Sharapova, a more classic baseline player who is still developing in other aspects of the game, won her first Aussie Open last year.

The surface change might make Venus the better bet this time around compared to her sister. She’s only been to the finals at Melbourne once back in 2003 and was eliminated in the quarterfinals last year by Ana Ivanovic.

But the elder Williams got the better of world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-2 at last week’s World Team Challenge event in Hong Kong.

Serena, meanwhile, struggled to beat world No. 46 and Australian native Samantha Stosur in three sets during the first round of the Sydney warm-up. It was Jankovic who eliminated Serena at the Aussie Open quarterfinals last year.

That roadblock might not be there this month. Jelena Jankovic pulled out of the Hong Kong event after losing to Venus, citing the flu. “I really have been trying my best to go on the court, but I feel slow,” Jankovic told the BBC on Saturday. “Nobody likes to be sick, and now I’m on medication and I have to rest and try to recover as fast as possible.”

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