2013 - The Story So Far - WTA

What Have We Learned?

Serena is werqing these days

Ladies First

• It took her until the age of 31, but Serena Williams is finally playing a full schedule.  She has 17 tournaments on her ranking as of 1st April
• Serena is not quite at her 2012 highs, due to injuries or other reasons, but she's still pretty damn near untouchable when she's dialled in, and deserves to be ranked #1.
• The ladies top 10 is an interesting place, more so now that Vika has scored a win over Serena to win the Doha title, and Maria competed much better against Serena in the Miami final for a set and a half, although her eventual collapse was sobering.  However, the possibility of matches between these three being less of a foregone conclusion is a welcome one for the rest of the season.  Also, although players like Aga, Li, Angie, Petra and Sam are not at the level of the top 3, they can sometimes push them or even score the occasional upset, which lessens the predictability of it all.  May it continue for the rest of 2013.
• The Australian Open was wild, if a tad injurious.  The final was full of drama, with a hostile crowd, twice twisted ankles and a banged head to boot.  Vika did well to deal with all these distractions to lift her second major.
• The Vika-Sloane controversy was way overblown, and demonstrates that, for whatever reason, many people automatically assume the worst about Vika.  Maybe it's her pugnacious attitude, her unwillingness to fit into some sort of 'ladylike' mould, or something else, but it's real.  Not much benefit of the doubt for her.  
• Serena is not invincible but it may require an enormously swollen ankle to bring her down.
• We're on a bit of a roll with Grand Slam finals - 3 fairly dramatic ones in a row, with Serena taking down Aga in 3 sets at Wimbledon, Serena passing Vika in a tough 3 setter at Flushing Meadowns, and the wild ride that was Vika defeating Li in 3 in Melbourne.  Only Roland Garros hasn't seen a 3 set final lately, last one was Jennifer vs Kim in 2001, so we're overdue.
• Wozniacki is playing with more confidence and focus since the coaching experiments ended and she returned to her father exclusively, but the game hasn't improved either and she no longer has the aura of the #1 ranking - players know it will be tough and they will have to be patient, but they *can* beat her.
• The youngsters are coming - sort of.  Sloane, Laura, Yulia, Lara, Garbine and others - younger names are starting to announce their presence once again, a healthier state of affairs than in the current mens game perhaps.  No enormous breakthoughs aside from Sloane reaching the Australian Open SF, but they're starting to establish themselves.

Now we move onto the clay, which, with no one dominant clay player any longer, could be anyone's game.  Since Justine retired (the first time), the Roland Garros trophy has tended to be lifted by somewhat surprising names - Ivanovic, Li, Schiavone all took their chances to win their first and so far only majors, while Sharapova, last year's winner, was long felt to lack the movement and defensive skills to lift this trophy.

Serena has won it once but has failed to make it back to the final since, and her boundless confidence in herself seems just a little less certain once it gets slippery underfoot.  She has been the dominant player since hooking up Patrick Mouratoglou as her coach, but the Australian Open showed that, well, shit happens. 

This clay season is wide open once again.  While I doubt she will be pushing excessively hard for the warm-up tournaments, I would put money on her to win the big one this year.  Just not a lot of money.