Murray to begin campaign for first Australian Open title

Throw in the fact that her warm-up event in Auckland brought a second-round defeat to Madison Brengle, ranked well outside the top 50, and Williams can be opposed despite the layers’ lure of 3/1 or more. Her footwork is really off.

And then there’s Germany’s Kerber, who is scheduled to meet her in the final as the newly-engaged Williams looks to better Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slam singles titles by winning her seventh Australian crown.

In the absence of 2008 champion Maria Sharapova, who is serving out the remainder of a doping ban, and twice victor Victoria Azarenka, who has just had a baby, top seed Kerber again looks like being the most likely to threaten Williams’s dominance.

It is all a far cry from events past year, when Murray was torn between his title attempt and what was happening back home.

Marital bliss will clearly have to wait. I don’t think we can predict that.

“I have a lot of confidence”.

“Now I’m on the road, already back at work”.

“It was, like, I want to be at home for the birth, but then I’m not just going to sort of leave whilst my father-in-law is also in hospital”.

“Any time you play one of the best players in the world – I think she’s ranked five right now – it’s like a standard of where you’re at”, Bouchard said after the match. The pressure is a little bit higher. “I kinda gotta focus”. But a Williams victory has always been the default position at a tournament she has won six times.

“I would definitely not take me as a favourite of this tournament”.

This year, Williams does not enter the season as the world’s top-ranked player.

Previous year she was match point down in the first round against Japan’s Misaki Doi, and admitted coming through that scare proved to be a significant moment in her career.

The second-seeded American, who lost the top ranking to Kerber a year ago, could then meet in-form Johanna Konta in the fourth round and sixth seed Dominika Cibulkova in the quarter-finals.

‘ For me, it wasn’t a great season. For me, it wasn’t. I will try to do it like a year ago. He is looking at the draw from the top for the first time at a major and is hoping it comes with a change in fortunes at Melbourne Park.

Her parents took her seriously, and her mother became her learn-as-she-goes coach.

“I need to continue to improve. I think all the pressure is on her and it’s going to be extremely hard for her to defend it”.

Radwanska, who has enjoyed an intense rivalry with Kerber, has reached one major final over her decade-long career, losing the 2012 Wimbledon title decider to Williams. She was outlasted by Kerber late in a three-set final (she had led by a break in the final set), but she had established a template for how to carry herself on court, which is often the ingredient that eludes the most talented tennis players. It could be argued that “open” is a euphemism for “weak” with the women’s game in a relative state of flux.

But the modern legends produced one of the greatest finals in Australian Open history in 2009, a five-set epic that saw Nadal claim his only title in Melbourne and deny Federer a fourth.