Thin Women's Field at Australian Open

Well the draw for the Aussie Open has been released, and I'm not that excited for the men or women. On the men's side, you have...well you have Roger Federer, and you have Rafael Nadal, and that's about it...so tune-in for another Federer-Nadal final where Federer will win.

On the women's side, you have Henin pulling-out to settle her divorce to her sweet-but-probably-gay husband, which is all for the best since I always thought she was a lesbian, anyway. She's gone, Venus Williams is gone (she's been gone in spirit for a while, but just having her name entered spices things up), Serena hasn't made nearly as much progress as we'd have hoped, a lot of the top Russians are underperforming in the warmup tournaments (the exception being Sharapova -- who has yet to perform at all, not having entered any warmups except an exhibition where she was beaten by Clijsters), and Davenport is out having a baby and probably retired. [and I'm using run-on sentences]

I see the women's draw like this:

Bottom Half

On the bottom half, it's more or less a march to the finals for Mauresmo (how bold -- to predict a finalist before the tournament even starts! Ok well she is the #2 seed...). There is almost nothing exciting going on in Mauresmo's quarter of the draw, except a Round of 16 match between Dementieva and Vaidisova, which should be good, but should also be inconsequential when the winner loses to Mauresmo in the quarters.

In the other quarter of the bottom half, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on with lurkers (like Israeli Shahar Peer), and I think that will be the quarter of the draw that keeps people watching the early rounds. You have a Petrova-Serena Williams third round face-off, with the winner of that taking on the red-hot and body-broken Jelena Jankovic in the Round of 16 (the girl has won both warmup tournaments going into the Aussie Open, but is now practically on crutches as a result). The other Round of 16 match in that quarter is also exciting, with Kuznetsova going up against Peer, and the winner of that taking-on the winner of the Petrova/Serena-Jankovic match in the quarters (you follow?). All the excitement aside, I think it will basically go by the seeding and you'll have Petrova against Kuznetsova in that quarter when all is said and done.

This means that the semifinal for the bottom half should ultimately have Mauresmo taking-on the winner of the Kuznetsova-Petrova match, which I hope will be Petrova, but which won't matter because I predict Mauresmo moving-on to the finals regardless. [I know this happens to be what the seeding predicts, but I just don't see an upset happening at this stage]

Top Half

The top half is not super exciting, either. In the first quarter, you have an interesting Round of 16 match between Sharapova and Ivanovic, and I predict that the winner of that match will march all over her quarterfinal opponent (probably Schnyder) and into the semifinals.

In the other quarter, I think you have Clijsters gliding into the quarterfinals and taking-on the winner of a Hingis-Safina Round of 16 match. It will be a really tough one, as Hingis is seeded higher but recently lost to Safina in the final of a warmup tournament two weeks ago. I think, though, that Hingis will pull-through (since you know she will have *studied* that match she lost), and face Clijsters in the quarters.

This means that the semifinal of the top half will have the winner of the Sharapova-Ivanovic Round of 16 match taking-on the winner of the Clijsters-Hingis Quarterfinal match. I think that ultimately it will go with the seeds (sorry Hingis! I still love you!) and put Sharapova against Clijsters. **HERE IS WHERE I PREDICT THE MOST MAJOR UPSET (note that a lof of my earlier-rounds predictions involve upsets, including Serena even making the third round, and Peer making the quarters) --> I see Clijsters upsetting Sharapova (like she did recently in the exhibition event) and moving-on to a final against Mauresmo.

Overall Prediction

Clijsters said a long time ago that she'd retire at the end of this season, and while we don't know now if she still thinks that, I can see her doing it with the Australian Open 2007 title under her belt. That said, Mauresmo has such an easy route to the finals compared to Clijsters (who will have at least two big matches in the quarters and semis) that I think Mauresmo will be the fresher of the two. Overall, probably because Mauresmo is second only to Hingis in my list of faves (and sometimes third to Henin, depending on where Henin is at that point), I'm going to go with Mauresmo as the winner.

VC

UPDATE: When I wrote this Jankovic had match point against Clijsters in the finals of the last warmup tournament in Sydney and I called her the winner, but it turns out Clijsters turned it around to win in three sets after 2.5 hours. More reason to believe she'll upset Sharapova in the semis!

PS: You can check out this article from The Guardian to see how my predictions match up with those of the press -- although as validated as I am by the article's picks, I have to say that it's not exactly expertly-written, since there are a few errors in the reading of the draw (the author confuses some of the sections of the draw, including an important mistake in terms of Clijsters's opponents, who the author steals from Hingis's part of the draw!).