– A subdued Serena Williams downplays injury concerns: The six-time Australian Open champion met with the press on Saturday hours after photos emerged of her under some possible physical distress during practice earlier in the morning. Serena dismissed any concerns.
“I’m at 120, 130 percent right now,” she said. “This week, the weeks leading up, [there] has been a lot of work.”
“I don’t have any inflammation anymore,” she said, when asked about the knee inflammation that disrupted her Hopman Cup participation. “It’s just that I needed some time to get over that little hump. Like I said, I’ve been doing a lot of, lot of, lot of training leading up to this.”
This year, four of the Top 6 seeds will go into the Australian Open without a completed match under their belt: Serena, Garbiñe Muguruza, Maria Sharapova, and Petra Kvitova. Serena insisted her preparation has been good. “I didn’t have the match play that I’ve wanted to have,” she said. “But after playing for so many years on tour, I should be able to focus on that and the fact that I have played a lot of matches. So that’s what I’m trying to focus on now.”
Serena opens her tournament against Camila Giorgi on Monday.
– Managing the pressure for Grand Slam No.22: Serena has not played a completed match since her US Open loss to Roberta Vinci in September. Asked whether that added any pressure or nerves as the tournament is set to begin, Serena said no.
“I feel fine,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t have anything to prove. I have nothing to lose. I can only gain. That’s kind of how I look at it right now.”
That’s true. But then there was this:
Q. What do you think would make a good tournament for you here?
SERENA WILLIAMS: I mean, we all know the answer to that, so… No need to even say it.
And you know what? That’s also true.
– Podcast Preview: Listen to a full tournament preview on the new episode of the WTA Insider Podcast:
– Players not thrown by injury woes at the top: It’s an easy story and one that, on the surface, makes sense: With the top players starting their seasons under a cloud of injuries, shouldn’t the rest of the field see Melbourne as a big opportunity?
Not really.
The players have told me they don’t take much stock in the withdrawals and retirements that have wracked the first two weeks of the season. The common refrain: The top players know what they’re doing. No one wants to risk anything ahead of the Australian Open. They’ll all be ready to go when the first ball is struck.
– Victoria Azarenka ignoring the hype: Even before the draw came out, the chatter surrounding Azarenka’s prospects of winning her third Australian Open title this year were in full swing. Once the draw revealed her in the bottom half of the draw, the chatter has become more of roar. It’s a roar that Azarenka brushes off.
“Probably,” she said, when asked whether she has noticed a change. “I’m not that much aware about it because I try to read other articles,” she said with a smile.
“But, I mean, it’s quite normal that somebody had success going in, [you make] predictions. It’s always the same story. You guys need to write that, hype everybody up. I’m not saying it in a bad way. It’s just for me it’s a little bit irrelevant. I know I still have to go out there and prove myself.”
Here’s Serena on Vika’s early season resurgence: “I think Vika is such a great player. Not only that, she’s such a good personality. She’s really fun. She’s super cool.
“It’s so good to see someone like her who has been through a lot of ups and downs, has seen the glory, then had to go down in her ranking, to be able to come back and just do so well. Just in general, she’s the kind of person that you always just root for just because.”
– Sharapova tempers expectations: Serena asked reporters not to tell her anything about her draw, not even her first round opponent. Azarenka and Halep said they don’t look at it either.
Sharapova actually does look at the draw. She’s not concerned about being psyched out by her draw because it ultimately doesn’t matter. “You know all the players that are competing here. It’s no secret who you’re going to be playing. I mean, you’re bound to face somebody good from the first round on. There’s a reason why these players are in the draw.
“I can’t look too far ahead of myself. I haven’t played for a few weeks. I have to keep my expectations quite low and just work my way, work my game, work my mindset through this draw.”
– Muguruza still not pain free: Muguruza told reporters the plantar fasciitis that forced her to retire in her first match in Brisbane is feeling better. But she still feels pain in practice. “I felt the foot also last year a lot of times,” she said. “It’s just something I have sometimes. It’s not going to change.
“It’s just a pain that sometimes you feel it and sometimes no. So it’s kind of hard to deal with it sometimes. But for now it’s good.”
– Muguruza fighting against a sophomore slump: After her breakthrough season, making the Wimbledon final, winning Beijing, and finishing the year at No.3, Muguruza warns against expecting more this year.
“I think it’s going to be a really hard year for me because I’ve never been in a situation from everybody. Me, also, I’m like, How I’m going to deal with all these new things? I’m actually very curious about how I’m going to feel myself when I go to the court, if I’m going to be able to be there, not think about so many things.”
– The Perils of Air-Conditioning: Want to get a tennis player or coach to launch into an angry diatribe? Just mention air-conditioning. Players are very sensitive to it and immediately ask transport drivers to shut it off. I once did an interview with Julia Goerges in Miami in which she asked to do the interview in a different room because the A/C was blasting in the one we were been assigned.
It looks like the A/C curse has struck again this year at the Australian Open. Halep sounded noticeably hoarse in her pre-tournament press conference. “I’m a little bit sick, cold, yeah, with my nose,” she said. “Is nothing dangerous. Is normal. From the air-conditioning.”
– Silence, please: Who knew? Azarenka hates whistling. “I just hate when people whistling. No one can whistle in my house. I will snap at you if you do.”
– Maria’s laundry mix-up: Sharapova’s pre-tournament press conference ended on a light note. Asked if she had ever had any issues with tournament laundry, Sharapova deadpanned an underwear mix-up that had the room rolling in laughter.
“I actually just returned a pair of underwear that wasn’t mine, like 45 minutes ago,” she said. “Funny you ask that. I don’t know if you were like checking out the laundry room situation, but it really happened. It was a female pair of underwear, not male. It was leopard. I’m like, That’s not mine.”
– Tough turnaround: Eugenie Bouchard played the Hobart International final on Saturday and will play her first round match against Aleksandra Krunic on Monday.
– What are the odds?: Thailand’s Luksika Kumkhum, ranked No.167, navigated her way through qualifying and will play No.6 seed Kvitova on Monday. It will be a rematch of their first round match here in 2014, which a then-No.88-ranked Kumkhum won 6-2, 1-6, 6-4.
– Notable qualifiers: Tamira Paszek, Nicole Gibbs, Naomi Osaka, and Krystina Pliskova all qualified. Always be wary of talented players who make it through qualifying. They’re used the courts and conditions and full of confidence.
