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Sunday 6 January 2013

Sara Errani and Australian Open 2013


Sara Errani is coming off a career year, where she made it to her first Grand Slam quarter-final in Australian Open, followed it up with her first Grand Slam final during the French Open, and made the semi-finals of the U. S Open. The question that pops up is that will she be able to back up her career year, and be consistent, or will she fade away?

Let us see what the probability of Errani is for making a deep run at the Australian Open.

Sara Errani will be the the 7th seed most probably for the upcoming Australian Open. She must be happy and excited to return to the tennis courts from where she started her journey towards the top 10.

Sara Errani and Australian Open – Based on the past results of 7th seeds

The best showing by a 7th seed at the Australian Open has been going all the way to lifting the trophy. Guess who was she? Yes, Serena Williams. Serena Williams defeated 11th seeded Nadia Petrova in the 4th round, 2nd seed Amelie Mauresmo in the quarter-finals, 4th seeded Maria Sharapova in the semi-finals (8-6 in the 3rd set), and finally the top seed Lindsay Davenport in the final (Serena baggled Davenport in the 3rd set).
Errani has to be optimistic, and positive about her chances if she looks at the history of 7th seeds at the Australian Open. She has a good 48% chance of making it to the quarter-finals or better at Australian Open. However, she also has a 52% chance of falling before the quarter-final stage of the Melbourne tennis. A 7th seed has lost in the first round only twice in the past 25 years, since 1988. In-fact no 7th seed has lost in the first round since 2004, when 7th seeded Elena Dementieva lost to Jelena Jankovic (1-6 4-6).

Sara Errani and Australian Open – Based on the Errani’s past performances at Australian Open

Errani is 8-5 life time in Australian Open, with her best showing coming last year when she made it to the quarter-finals, loosing in straight sets to then world no.2 Petra Kvitova.
Interesting thing to note is that during her 5 visits to the Melbourne tennis courts, Errani has never lost to a player ranked below her. This is one interesting thing, considering that she will be seeded 7th at Australian Open this year.

Errani has lost twice in the opening round of the Australian Open, one in 2011 when she lost to 4th seed Venus Williams in straight sets (6-3 6-2), and the other time in 2008, at the hands of Lindsay Davenport (6-2 3-6 7-5). The other 3 times she has made it to the 3rd round of Australian Open at least.
Errani started her 2013 campaign at Brisbane where she won her opening round match against Olga Puchkova (61 63), but fell short in the second round match against Daniela Hantuchova (46 61 75). At the moment she is playing in Sydney and her first round opponent is Karolina Pliskova.

How far do you think is Errani going to go at this year’s Australian Open?

2 comments:

  1. I am one of the pesimists when it comes to Errani. I think she's going to find it tough this season. Outside of top 10 there are players like Cibulkova, Ivanovic, Bartoli who are going to try to get back there and could potentially push her out.


    I think she could make it to QF but not further at the AO. She has achieved the most on clay anyway. I don't think she's ever won anything on hard courts,correct me if I'm wrong.

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  2. I agree with you in that Errani definitely is going to find it tough this season, but she has won a title on hard courts, though it was only international level and was way back in 2008, Potoroz. She has been to a runner-up twice in hard court events also. Potoroz in 2009 and Pattaya City in 2011. Plus, she made it to the quarter-finals of Australian Open and the semi-finals of U.S Open (she lost to Kvitova at AO and Serena at US), both of which are hard court events.

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