Serena Williams, Sharapova in same quarter at Aussie Open

She made the final past year and won the title in 2008, and the Happy Slam is where she has seen some of her most consistent results.

Sharapova insists her lack of match practice won’t impact on her Australian Open chances as she feels she will benefit from additional time to rest following her injury.

After that shocking September defeat to Vinci, Williams ended her season to heal physically and psychologically, but at 34, she has struggled since her return.

Coach Patrick Mouratoglou said past year she had “very little” cartilage left in the joints and she was forced out of the Hopman Cup in Perth last week with more knee pain.

He is thus keen to end the skid, and doing so in Melbourne might be sweeter for the Scot since he has lost four finals at the Australian Open – three to Djokovic. These are things that happen sometimes. “I’m ready”, Williams said on Friday. She definitely played really well past year, but kept bumping into Serena. They just need special attention.

Agnieszka Radwanska (leg) and Petra Kvitova (illness) withdrew from other warmup tournaments and No. 9 Lucie Safarova announced early she wasn’t competing in Australia because of a bacterial infection. Always one to watch as she loves Melbourne and its restaurants and night life, none of which appears to affect her play here as in the past five years, she’s always advanced past the first week here….

Between them, the two world No.1s own 11 Australian Open crowns and twice previous year they grabbed titles at the same slams – in Melbourne and Wimbledon – and their pose with the trophies together is becoming a common sight.

But it was not a dominant season in the classic sense.

Major titles: None. Best: – French Open finalist (’14).

He even used the term “stratospheric” to describe Djokovic’s level. But she did great.

Canadian Vasek Pospisil was eliminated from the Auckland ASB Classic on Wednesday after dropping straight sets to his American doubles partner Jack Sock in second round action at the Australian Open warm-up event.

Williams’ hunger when she’s trailing in a match has rarely been questioned.

The first tennis Grand Slam of the year will begin on Melbourne Park’s hard courts on Monday (January 18) and the multiple winners will be the pair to beat in the men’s and women’s singles.

“She doesn’t [talk] about age, except for joking”, he said. “Time allows you to put things in perspective and to realize what you’ve accomplished”. She’s won it twice.

“There’s so many matches in the first set she played like listless tennis, lethargic, like she was going through the motions with no energy”, Evert said on a conference call. “I know nobody playing tennis like this ever”. Novak Djokovic trained there in December. “We worked in this direction during the pre-season”.