See also: Men’s Preview
Few developments have encapsulated just how wide open women’s tennis has been since Serena’s pregnancy than the US Open back in the fall, when the final was two previously unranked teenagers, Emma Raducanu and LA Fernandez, duking it out for the trophy. That showed us both how many good young players there are these days, and also how long the list of players that can hypothetically win a slam is. 2021 saw eight different players (Osaka, Brady, Krejcikova, Pavlyuchenkova, Barty, Pliskova, Raducanu, Fernandez) play in a Grand Slam final and fourteen different players made up the 16 semifinalist slots at the four slams (only Maria Sakkari and Aryna Sabalenka made two semis). Expanded even further, twenty-six different players made up the 32 quarterfinalist slots at the four slams. There are a lot of different players who can challenge for glory, and that’s what makes these events so fun.
Just like with the men’s side, we’re going to go through the bracket section by section and analyze the field, making picks along the way.
Section One
Well, well, we’ve already found our Group of Death for this tournament. The tournament organizers managed to draw world #1 (and home country hero) Ash Barty in with Naomi Osaka, the world’s best hard court player when she’s on the top of her game. Barty’s a great player who is in her prime at age 25, and is a good face to oppose Osaka in this section because they come from different directions. Osaka is a dominant hard court player who has found success in Australia but has yet to really see her play translate to clay and grass. On the flip side, Barty is a versatile player with slam wins in France and Wimbledon who has yet to win a hard court slam, and all the pressure will be on to do so in Australia.
Osaka’s dominance in Australia needs no introduction, 16-1 here in the last three tournaments with the lone loss to Coco Gauff in 2020 and two trophies to boot. Barty has made at least the quarters in the last three Aussie Opens, but has cracked with the bright lights on her, yet to make a final in this tournament. Still, that’s good enough for a 13-3 record, which means someone will be having their Australian Open cut uncharacteristically short thanks to this brutal draw. The two have actually met in Australia before, back when both were just wee lads (2018), Barty #18 at the time and Osaka unranked. Naomi won in straight sets. The two are even H2H overall (2-2) but Osaka leads 2-1 on hard courts. That said, for as good of players as they are, they haven’t played all that often and should they meet, it’ll be their first showdown in three years. Weird.
I suppose we ought to throw out a few other names here. Belinda Bencic is a good player and another tough draw in this bracket, being ranked as high as #4 in the world less than two years ago (also won Gold in Tokyo last summer). She could beat Osaka… but if Osaka is firing, no one in the world can beat her on hard court. That’s the mystery of this whole tournament. Naomi was her dominant self to begin 2021, but then struggled through clay season (like usual) and then had the mental health incident. Her return to the court after that wasn’t anywhere close to the level of play we’re used to. Did the offseason get her right? Idk. It feels wrong to bet against her at this tournament of all places, but I need to see evidence to buy in, especially when the alternative is a player as consistent as Ash Barty. Gimme the Aussie.
Section Two
This is an interesting section because it’s got some players who had big 2021 campaigns. Ons Jabeur is a name who’s been around on brackets for years (memorable for being Tunisian), but who rarely ever went deep. That’s started to change, with a couple QF appearances in the past two seasons, and last year she established personal high watermarks at three different slams. Still, not the most threatening #9 seed given that she’s never made a major semi and has just one career WTA title despite over 500 career matches played.
Down below her is Maria Sakkari, one of only two players to make two major semis last year. Sakkari got a lot better in 2021, rising from world number 22 to world number 6 by the end of the season. She hits the hell out of the ball, with one of the best serves on tour and can also control play from the baseline. As much as I like her to go on a deep run, 2021 served as a warning sign for the bust potential: she made the semis at the US Open and the French Open, but went 1-2 in the two other slams, with swift, early exits.
The only other name here worth mentioning is Jessica Pegula, who went from a Who Dat name memorable only for her family (daughter of the wealthy Pegula family who own the Buffalo Bills and Sabres), to the number 18 player in the world. Most of that was built off of making the quarters here in Australia. She was 3-8 in grand slam matches before 2021, and then went 9-4 last season. A big improvement, but still not a threat to win the whole thing to me. Wouldn’t shock me to see her make another run, but I like Maria Sakkari the most here. Yeah I’m aware of the bust potential, but I just love her game.
Section Three
Speaking of players who got a lot better in 2021, no female player on earth had a better 2021 relative to expectations than Barbora Krejčiková. Known as a doubles specialist (part of one of the best doubles teams in women’s tennis with Katerina Siniaková), Krejčiková had mostly played in singles slams because she was there for doubles and said “why the hell not?”. But she had rarely made it out of the qualifying stages before 2021. Then suddenly she won the French Open in May out of nowhere, then made the 4th round at Wimbledon, and then the quarters in New York, making her not just a Grand Slam champion, but also a stunningly consistent competitor at the slams.
Jelena Ostapenko is starting to look more and more like a one hit wonder, as her 2017 French Open win has started to fade into being a distant memory. She’s 12-11 career at hard court slams and I don’t see her as a serious competitor here. I actually like the scrappy Alison Riske to make the third round over her (could also see Donna Vekic doing that too if she beats Riske).
The bottom half of this section consists of players who have fallen down the board a bit. Vika Azarenka played great tennis at the 2020 US Open but has otherwise failed to recapture the magic of the early 2010s post-pregnancy. Still a lot of fight in that ex-champion, though. Elina Svitolina feels like the new Caroline Wozniacki, a player who plays a ton of tourneys to earn a high ranking, yet never actually wins anything. She had a disappointing 2021 that has tumbled her down the rankings, but obviously she’s still a threat to make the quarters before being bounced by some 19-year-old hotshot Bulgarian because that’s where women’s tennis is nowadays and that’s how Svitolina’s career has unfolded.
This one is wide open, but I like Azarenka here. She’s been one-and-done in Australia her last two times here, and there’s always risk with an injury-prone 32-year-old, but Azarenka has won Australia twice and is 9-2 in matches that she’s contested since the US Open. Not to mention that hard court has always been her best surface. Let’s roll the dice.
Section Four
This is a section designed to anger my mother, who reserves a special place in hell for tournament draws that draw American women players in with other American women. And this section managed to put Sofia Kenin and Madison Keys together IN THE FIRST ROUND with the chance to face Coco Gauff in the third round. I suppose we should note that ESPN is probably just as mad as my mom is, given that this draw means that nearly all of the American women with a shot to win this event will be gone by the first weekend.
Kenin is a bit of a lightning in the bottle player, winning this event back in 2020 and making the French Open finals that same year but otherwise has no other career quarterfinal appearances at slams to speak of. She’s a hell of a fighter and battled injuries last season, so here’s hoping that Kenin gets back on track this year. Her first round matchup with Keys is an unfortunate sign of how far Keys has fallen, once a top ten player who could consistently make the quarters of big events. She’s now been reduced to a slot in the draw typically reserved for sacrificial lambs. Of course, Keys could always turn it around, but she was 11-15 in WTA matches last season. That’s bad. She’s still only 26, but man it feels like that 2017 US Open Final was her shot to win something and she missed it. I feel bad for Keys that she has to face Kenin, but I also feel bad for Kenin that she has to face Keys. Kenin’s the better player right now, but there’s a lot of unpredictability here.
Outside of that, we’re all still waiting for Coco Gauff to take the next step. She made her first QF appearance last year and now is starting to get to that age (17, turning 18 in March) where it’s conceivable for a women’s player to actually make a run at a title. Down in the bottom half, I have to shout out Craig Ross of WTKA in Ann Arbor for picking Paula Badosa in our French Open draft last year. I was not terribly familiar with her when he pulled her name out of the bag, and then she went and made the quarters at that tourney, before ending the year in the top ten (winning Indian Wells!). She was an up-and-comer and Craig called it just before she busted out. Well done. I want something fun to happen from this section, so I’m going to pick Coco Gauff to make her second career QF. She’s made the fourth round here before, plays well on hard court, and as we saw last year with Raducanu and Fernandez, rapid improvement can come fast when you age into your late teens. Gauff to the quarters.
Section Five
Wow this is a weird section. The “big” seeds are Anett Kontaveit and Elena Rybakina, two players with a combined two career major quarterfinal appearances to their names. If that doesn’t underscore how it’s easy to game the system and play a lot of tournaments to quickly move up the rankings, I’m not sure what does. To her credit, I do like Rybakina’s game, having watched her beat Serena in Paris back in May. She’s got an odd story, an ethnic Russian born in Moscow with no ties to Kazakhstan who decided to switch federations and gain Kazakh citizenship to play for that country (presumably because they could devote more resources to her as their lone star) when she was a teenager. She’s been playing great as of late, but did suffer an injury recently which makes me a bit nervous entering this tournament.
Kontaveit I’ve got little on, other than that she’s like Jabeur, one of those names who hangs around and you remember her because there are few other notable Estonian players. She improved a lot last season, winning a number of small WTA titles and making the finals at the year-end tournament, but has little success at bigger events. I’m generally skeptical of those kinds of players, but hey, who knows.
The rest of this bracket is a Remember Some Gals names. If you’re thinking “is that Vera Zvonareva?” when you looked at the bracket, A) congrats on being a total tennis nerd and B) yes, that is. The former #2 player in the world is still hanging around at age 37 and will play Elise Mertens in the first round. Danielle Collins and Shelby Rogers have both had moments in the sun for the US, Zhang Shuai used to be a lot better than she is now, and Siniaková is stashed in this bracket too. This seems like an easy bracket to forecast someone random to come out of, so let’s go with Shelby Rogers. She made the fourth round here last year and has a couple QF appearances at slams in her past.
Section Six
This section is home to one of the other most intriguing first round matches, a pair of US Open champions facing off when Emma Raducanu faces Sloane Stephens. Sloane’s career has taken a mighty fall since 2017-18, just 10-7 in matches at slams the last two seasons. 2021 represented a mild bounceback year after a disastrous 2020, but it’s worth wondering if, at age 28, Stephens has anything left in the tank as a real slam competitor. Raducanu on the other hand is the half-Romanian, half-Chinese, Canadian-born, British-raised teenage phenom who won the most recent grand slam event back in September. She had never entered the main draw at a major until Wimbledon, and then proceeded to go 10-1 in major matches to close out the season, including not losing a set in New York (!!). It was about as meteoric as a rise as you can get, and now 2022 will be a big year to see if Raducanu is ready to be a superstar right away. The returns since her US Open win have not been great, 2-4 in matches overall, including first round exits in Indian Wells, Linz, and Sydney.
Outside of that match, the rest of this section is also pretty loaded, with two 2x grand slam champions in Simona Halep and Garbiñe Muguruza. Halep’s tumbled down the rankings due to an injury-riddled 2021, but when she did play, she still showed she can be a top five caliber player. Muguruza has had her great runs but has just one major QF appearance in the past 13 slams she’s entered. That one appearance did lead to her making the finals in Australia, so she’s got the chops to make a run. I like Halep here. She just won the Melbourne title (though not against elite names) and so long as she stays healthy, she’s got the best track record in this section, especially since I’m a bit spooked by the possibility that Raducanu loses first round to Sloane Stephens (never trust the teenagers with only one sensational tourney to their name).
Section Seven
While Section Six was another loaded section, Section Seven I’m a little more hazy on. Iga Światek is one of the best clay court specialists in the world, but sadly Australia isn’t a clay court tournament. Last year she showed she can consistently advance a few rounds in majors, but stalled out in the fourth round of all three non-clay slams. I like her odds to make it to at least the fourth round again, though, as no one else on her half of this section really scares me (Kasatkina and Sevastova are both decent but neither am I circling in red ink).
The bottom half is the Old Ladies portion of the draw, with both seeds being 30+ year old players in Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Petra Kvitová. Pavlyuchenkova was one of those Eternal Quarterfinalist type players for the first decade of her career before finally making the French Open final back in May, one of the top feel good stories of last season on the WTA Tour. That said, take that one tourney out of the picture and she went 1R, 3R, 4R for a 5-3 record in major matches last year. Basically, a lot of the same.
Kvitová is one of the most experienced players in the draw, having made quarters at every slam, semis at 3/4, and has two Wimbledon titles. She was upset here last year, but the two events prior she made pretty deep runs and is always a good bet. That said, she was only 4-3 in major matches overall in 2021 and at age 31, it’s not unreasonable to think age could be catching up to her. In a bracket with a younger but also quite consistent option in Światek, I’m taking the Pole to make the quarters.
Section Eight
Speaking of Old Ladies, we kick this bracket off with Angelique Kerber, soon to be 34 years old and a three time major champion (she holds the Stan Wawrinka Award of having her three slam wins all be different tourneys). Kerber may not be what she was in 2016 or 2018, but she made two deep(ish) runs to close out 2021, showing she still has some juice left in the tank. That’s a tricky first round matchup though, facing Kaia Kanepi, who was once a top 20 player in the world and has made six major QF appearances in her career. Possible upset watch there.
Leylah Annie “LA” Fernandez is the other seed in the top half here, fresh off her run to the US Open final back in the fall. She saw her world ranking jump from 88 to 24 last year and the Canadian is still only 19 years old. It’s hard not to love her charm and charisma on the court, and having beaten Kerber in New York, I think she does so again here to reach the fourth round. However, I think she loses when she gets there to Aryna Sabalenka, a player I like a lot.
For Sabalenka, the challenge has been reigning in the wild component to her game… her raw stuff is probably the best on tour but too often the line between electric winners and unforced errors has been too fine. That changed some last year, where Sabalenka was maybe the most consistently good player on the tour: made the 4th round here (lost to eventual semifinalist Serena Williams in three sets), and then made semis at Wimbledon and the US Open. Alongside that she was a semifinalist in Montreal, won Madrid, and made quarters in Miami and Dubai. She’s #2 in the world for a reason and it’s felt for some time that eventually it’s all going to come together. I like her to make the quarters here.
Knockout Rounds
Based on my picks, this is how the quarters set up:
(1) Ash Barty vs. (5) Maria Sakkari
(24) Viktoria Azarenka vs. (18) Coco Gauff
Shelby Rogers vs. (14) Simona Halep
(7) Iga Światek vs. (2) Aryna Sabalenka
I know this is going to be very wrong because I made it way too chalky in picking too many high seeds, but here’s where we’re at. Barty has handled Sakkari in the past, but that was before Sakkari’s improvement, and I think the emotional drain of having just played Osaka will weigh Barty down enough to give Sakkari a tough three set win. I would want to see Coco take down Azarenka, but I think the veteran has enough championship grit left in her to gut out a tough win. I’m picking Halep to end Rogers’ Cinderella run, and Sabalenka over Światek given that this is on hard court and not clay.
That leaves us with:
(5) Maria Sakkari vs. (24) Viktoria Azarenka
(14) Simona Halep vs. (2) Aryna Sabalenka
Azarenka has toppled Sakkari both times they’ve faced each other (both quite recently) but I do have questions about Azarenka’s stamina and health in a long tournament like a major, compared to a younger Sakkari. In a match with a lot of grinding baseline rallies that goes the distance, I have Sakkari finally moving past the semis of a major to end up in the final. On the flip side, Halep/Sabalenka is an all-Eastern Europe semifinal that should also be brutally physical, but I’ll take the younger Sabalenka here too. I just like the idea of two players who have made a couple semis finally getting over the hump in Sakkari and Sabalenka.
Champion?
Man, I don’t know. These two have seen each other a lot, six meetings in just the last three seasons, all on hard court. Sabalenka is 4-2 in those matchups, but Sakkari won the most recent one back in the fall at the WTA Finals. Both are players who, if they’ve gotten to this point, have conquered the mental demon of inconsistency, and with both playing power styles, it will just be a matter of who has more left in the tank. Sabalenka is the player who has been closer to winning a slam in the past and is overall more consistent, so I’ll go with her. A new Belarusian champion rises and world #2 gets her ring.