Trophy Presentation, F, 31 January 2015.

It’s that time of year.

After the NFL’s divisional playoff round ends, there will be only three meaningful football games left in the season. The NCAA tournament is still two months away. What are you going to do, sports fans, with these long winter nights?

For two full weeks, you can watch major-tournament tennis.

The Australian Open is here. It starts Monday afternoon in Melbourne, Australia, which will be Sunday evening in the United States. The tournament runs through Sunday, January 31, spicing up the sports calendar with constant action. You don’t have to wait seven days or two weeks for the next big game — nudge, nudge.

We’ll tackle the men’s singles tournament in a separate piece. Here, we’ll examine the women’s event through the prism of five central questions that will be answered in Melbourne Park:

5 – WHICH OFF-THE-RADAR PLAYER WILL MAKE A DEEP RUN?

Let’s start with a question about the outsiders.

Last year, Madison Keys — not quite 20 years old — made the Australian Open semifinals before losing to eventual champion Serena Williams. In 2014, Eugenie Bouchard reached the semifinal stage of the tournament before losing to eventual champion Li Na. That result ignited Bouchard’s season and career. Keys didn’t get as much mileage out of her semifinal run, but it is widely felt that she has major titles in her future.

Which player might announce her presence for the 2016 season and catch tennis pundits off guard? The Australian Open bursts with optimism because players have just completed a multi-month offseason in which they were able to get extended rest and (or?) practice time. Not having to worry about match play, the top pros on tour are able to make decisions about how to re-calibrate their approaches in conjunction with their coaches. Shifts in practice and physical training can unlock talent and improve performance.

Injuries have affected plenty of players in the lead-up to this year’s Australian Open, but for many of the 128 competitors in the tournament, the weekly grind of life on tour has not yet set in. This is the major tournament in which players are fresher compared to the other three (French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open), which unfold in the concentrated span of 3.5 months (and will exist alongside the Summer Olympics this year, an added plot complication).

Let’s see which player (if any) rises from the shadows to set in motion a big 2016.

4 – WILL AGNIESZKA RADWANSKA FINALLY TAKE THE NEXT STEP?

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Agnieszka Radwanska is not approaching the end of her career, but two months before turning 27, the biological tennis clock is certainly ticking. Radwanska has reached a Wimbledon final (2012), and she lost a nail-biting Wimbledon semifinal to Sabine Lisicki (2013) when she knew that Marion Bartoli — not Serena or another heavyweight in women’s tennis — awaited in the final. That’s the major tournament Radwanska certainly feels she should have won.

At any rate, Radwanska is one of the best active WTA players never to have won a major. She just won the prestigious season-ending tour championship, the 2015 WTA Finals in Singapore. She won an Australian Open lead-up event a week ago in China. In terms of form, confidence and results, Radwanska hasn’t entered a major tournament under better, more favorable circumstances in quite some time. This event rates as a noticeably good chance for her to make history.

3 – IS SIMONA HALEP READY TO HANDLE PRESSURE ON A REGULAR BASIS?

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Simona Halep bowed out of the 2015 Australian Open in a way which attracted a lot of attention.

In a much-publicized and scrutinized remark, Halep said after an oddly passive quarterfinal loss to Ekaterina Makarova that a round-of-eight result was “enough for me.”

That comment never did mean Halep lacked a sufficient appetite for battle. Anyone who saw her labor through her U.S. Open fourth-round match against Sabine Lisicki can never doubt the competitive will of the one who calls herself “Fighter Girl.”

That reference to “enough” was — and still is — reflective of Halep’s big challenge at this crucial stage in her career: handling pressure.

Halep, against Makarova and plenty of other opponents in 2015, just didn’t respond well to being a favorite, to being a player entrusted with great expectations. The need to make a big breakthrough has clearly weighed on Halep’s mind. She will compete at a world-class level in one match (her quarterfinal win over Victoria Azarenka at last September’s U.S. Open) and then face-plant in the next (an awful performance in the semifinals of that same U.S. Open against eventual champion Flavia Pennetta).

A left Achilles tendon injury could inhibit her form in this tournament, but if Halep’s body is ready for two weeks of combat, the main opponent will be her mind. Halep shouldn’t be expected to win this tournament, but it’s time for the Romanian to regularly park herself in major-tournament semifinals, instead of dipping in and out of the spotlight. We’ll see if this Australian Open gives birth to a newer, steadier, more dependable Simona Halep.

2 – WILL VICTORIA AZARENKA RECLAIM HER PLACE IN THE TOP TIER OF WOMEN’S TENNIS?

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Even though she didn’t make a major quarterfinal last year, Victoria Azarenka played Serena Williams better and tougher than just about anyone else on the WTA Tour.

At the French Open and Wimbledon in 2015, Azarenka won the first set but couldn’t close the sale. At the French, she led Serena by a break (2-0) in the third set before faltering. In a non-major meeting in Madrid, Azarenka had three match points against Serena but won none of them, losing in a final-set tiebreaker.

The 2015 season was endlessly frustrating for Azarenka, who couldn’t string together enough good results to push her ranking into the top eight. However, in her warm-up tournament for the Australian Open, she not only won every set she played; she never allowed more than three games in any set. Yes, she’s still seeded fairly low — 14th at this event — but her form might be good enough to claim a third Australian Open title. The tennis world is waiting for the former world No. 1 to return to the top tier of the sport. More specifically, the tennis community is waiting to see if Azarenka can become a top-four player again, such that she’ll meet the Serenas and (Maria) Sharapovas in big-stage semifinals and finals, recalling 2012 and 2013.

How Azarenka performs at this tournament will be significant in terms of measuring her form and confidence. However, it will also give Azarenka an opportunity to collect a fat stack of rankings points and catapult her up the ladder. In the fourth round, Azarenka could carry that 14 seed against third-seeded Garbine Muguruza, the 2015 Wimbledon runner-up.

In the NCAA tournament, it’s always an upset when a 14 seed beats a 3. In this tournament, the 14 will be favored, should that matchup take place in the round of 16.

1 – FOR SERENA WILLIAMS AND THE OTHER ELITES, WILL INJURIES OR RUST GET IN THE WAY OF THE COMING FORTNIGHT?

Serena Williams of the USA reacts before withdrawing from her women's singles match between the USA and Australia Gold in session 6 of the Hopman Cup tennis tournament at the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia, 05 January 2016. Serena Williams failed to complete her opening date of the season as knee pain forced the 34-year-old to quit her Hopman Cup match against Jarmila Wolfe.  EPA/TONY MCDONOUGH AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT ORG XMIT: PER
Serena Williams of the USA reacts before withdrawing from her women’s singles match between the USA and Australia Gold in session 6 of the Hopman Cup tennis tournament at the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia, 05 January 2016. Serena Williams failed to complete her opening date of the season as knee pain forced the 34-year-old to quit her Hopman Cup match against Jarmila Wolfe. EPA/TONY MCDONOUGH AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT ORG XMIT: PER

The top six players in the WTA rankings either pulled out of at least one Australian Open warm-up event before it began; withdrew from a tournament after it had started; or otherwise failed to complete a tournament, such that the final point of their tournament was not a match point.

Naturally, Serena Williams headlines this list.

The best player of this generation, the best player of 2015, and certainly one of the three or four greatest women’s singles champions who has ever lived, Serena doesn’t have anything to prove to the public. She’s playing for herself and the history she can make every time she takes the court. If healthy, there’s no question she ought to be the favorite, but if the combination of knee pain and a lack of match play over the past three months is too much for her, the complexion of this tournament completely changes.

Radwanska, a possible semifinal opponent, could gain a clearer path to the final. Maria Sharapova, though also rusty after her own share of injury-related issues, would not have to face Serena (a career-long nemesis) in the quarterfinals.

Many players come to Melbourne each January with a new base of fitness and freshness after the offseason. Several players, however, aren’t 100 percent. Serena won last year’s French Open while fighting her level of fitness. If anyone can play through physical limitations, she can, but just the same, if she’s operating at a (meaningful) deficit, she’s a lot more vulnerable than she otherwise would be. That’s the talking point which will dominate this Australian Open.

Ready? Play.

About Matt Zemek

Editor,
@TrojansWire
| CFB writer since 2001 |