The Australian Open 2012 is the first Grand Slam of the year and it is going to be amazingly exciting. Six players on the womens side have the ability to finish the tournament with the World Number 1 ranking.
Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova, Sam Stosur and Agnieszka Radwanska could also take the top ranking, but the No. 2-ranked Kvitova is the favorite.
Caroline Wozniacki currently holds the top spot, but with her poor run in Grand Slams I doubt highly that she will be number 1 when the tournament ends.
Here in Queensland it hasn’t really been the best of times lately. It has just been announced that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will play an exhibition match on Sunday ahead of the Australian Open to raise funds for the country’s flood victims.
Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Kim Clijsters will join Lleyton Hewitt in a “Rally for Relief” match at Rod Laver Arena. Also participating will be Sam Stosur and retired star Pat Rafter, who both come from Queensland.
Stosur said the flooding, which has killed 25 people since November and trashed the city of Brisbane, is an “enormous disaster” and “lots of us just want to make some sort of contribution.”
Sam Stosur has just done it again! After playing one of the matches of her life to beat Justine Henin, she has now backed it up and knocked out Serena Williams in the French Open yesterday. Sam won 6-2 6-7 8-6.
Sam hit 30 winners against 24 errors, 6 aces and won 58% of the points when she had to thrown down a second delivery.
What annoys me is that Sam is a friend and she forgot to mention that before the tournament she was 125-1 to win the tournament with the bookies, so I missed out big time!
The Tennis Times would like to send out a big congratulations to Samantha Stosur who won her first career WTA tour title at the 2009 Japan Open. Sam is from the same place as me back home in Australia and we played all the same tournaments when I was a junior, so its great to see a fellow Aussie doing so well.
The final match in Japan Sam defeated No. 24 ranked Francesca Schiavone 7-5 6-1 to take home the title.
Stosur was quoted at Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, “I’m very, very pleased to win my first title after losing five previous finals. It has been a personal goal for a while, so I’m glad to have achieved it and it’s the perfect way to finish my year in singles. My next goal is to reach the Top 10, for which I would need to play like today every day.”
Stosur had been on a downward trend the past three years, being ranked No. 29 at the end of 2006, No. 46 at the end of 2007, and No. 49 at the end of 2008. Currently ranked No. 13, she has made a good turn around and her goal of reaching the Top Ten certainly seems possible.
You can see more of Stosur’s career stats at Sony Ericcson WTA Tour.
