Unlike the men’s draw, the women’s draw in professional tennis right now is wide open. The young players in the tour are dominating right now; three of the major winners last year (Bianca Andreescu, Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka) are all 23 years of age are younger. Andreescu will miss the Australian Open this year, which could provide an opening for a veteran like Serena Williams to take a title. The rule in the women’s side is parity, which means that tennis betting can be very difficult to predict.
2020 Australian Open Women’s Betting Preview
Hitting the ground running in Melbourne, @Simona_Halep! #AO2020 | #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/GyI7tAgd4P
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 17, 2020
Ashleigh Barty
She comes in as the top seed in this tournament, and, at least on paper, her path to the semifinals looks fairly manageable. However, that is usually when the wheels fall off in the women’s draw. In her last significant tournament, the WTA Finals in Shenzhen back in October, she took home the championship. She is also from Australia, but what one might think would be an advantage might not be one, as no Australian has won the women’s title in Melbourne in 42 years; the last one was Chris O’Neil, back in 1978. Barty also did not play all that well on home soil in the finals of the Fed Cup last year, dropping two of three matches as the Aussies fell to France.
Madison Keys and Petra Kvitova are the other high seeds in this part of the draw, and they have found their way to the semis, and even further, at previous Australian Opens. Alison Riske is the dark horse in this draw, as 2019 was the best year in her career to this point, and her draw is also manageable.
Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams
They occupy an interesting quarter of the draw. Also, Venus Williams meets Coco Gauff in the first round — for the second time in the last three Grand Slam events. Osaka won the 2019 Australian Open, but then she fell off the table in later majors before finishing 2019 strong. There are some tough matches ahead of her, as she could face Saisai Zheng in the second round, Coco or Venus in the third round, and then the quarterfinal could bring Osaka onto the court with Serena as well as the likes of Sloane Stephens, Caroline Wozniacki, Johanna Konta or Shuai Zhang. I don’t have a lot of confidence in Osaka, even after her strong finish to 2019. It will be interesting to see how seasoned Coco is — and with semifinalist will emerge from this bracket.
Who Are The Top Seeds?
Belinda Bencic and Simona Halep are the top seeds in the third quarter of the draw. They both have high ceilings as far as talent goes, but Halep lost to Aryna Sabalenka and Bencic fell to Danielle Collins this past week. Halep has a potential trap in the first round with Jen Brady, who has already beaten Maria Sharapova and Ashleigh Barty in 2020.
Sabalenka and Collins are in this draw as well; they open against Carla Suarez Navarro and Vitalia Diatchenko, respectively. A potential dark horse here would be Su-Wei Hsieh, who has taken down bigger names en route to the third and fourth rounds (respectively) Down Under the past two years.
Elina Svitolina and Karolina Pliskova are the top seeds in the last quarter of the women’s draw. Pliskova won in Brisbane last week, beating Osaka in the semis and Keys in the finals. It certainly is time to see if either of these can go from winning the middle-tier events to bringing home a Grand Slam title. Svitolina has a manageable road to the quarterfinals, but she lost to Collins also in 2020 and would likely need to beat her to make it that far. Her first likely seed would be Anastasia Sevastova, and she could see Kiki Bertens in the fourth round. Pliskova starts with Kiki Mladenovic and could see Coco Vandeweghe in the second round — and Angelique Kerber in the fourth. Once again, a tough quarter of the draw to call. Watching early round action could give you a better sense of who has their head on straight in Melbourne.
