Monday, 7 January, 2013
By Tennis Australia

The seeds are set for Australian Open 2013.

World No.1 and defending men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic will enter the tournament as the No. 1 men’s seed, while fellow world No. 1 and defending women’s singles champion Victoria Azarenka will start her campaign for back-to-back titles as top seed in the women’s draw.

The seeds for Australian Open 2013 are as follows:

Women’s seeds

1 Victoria Azarenka (BLR)

2 Maria Sharapova (RUS)

3 Serena Williams (USA)

4 Agnieszka Radwanska (POL)

5 Angelique Kerber (GER)

6 Li Na (CHN)

7 Sara Errani (ITA)

8 Petra Kvitova (CZE)

9 Samantha Stosur (AUS)

10 Caroline Wozniacki (DEN)

11 Marion Bartoli (FRA)

12 Nadia Petrova (RUS)

13 Ana Ivanovic (SRB)

14 Maria Kirilenko (RUS)

15 Dominika Cibulkova (SVK)

16 Roberta Vinci (ITA)

17 Lucie Safarova (CZE)

18 Julia Goerges (GER)

19 Ekaterina Makarova (RUS)

20 Yanina Wickmayer (BEL)

21 Varvara Lepchenko (USA)

22 Jelena Jankovic (SRB)

23 Klara Zakopalova (CZE)

24 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)

25 Venus Williams (USA)

26 Su-Wei Hsieh (TPE)

27 Sorana Cirstea (ROU)

28 Yaroslava Shvedova (KAZ)

29 Sloane Stephens (USA)

30 Tamira Paszek (AUT)

31 Urszula Radwanska (POL)

32 Mona Barthel (GER)


The official draw for Australian Open 2013 will take place at Crown Riverside, directly opposite Melbourne Aquarium, at 10.00am on Friday 11 January (outdoor event).

I'm watching the live coverage of the draw ceremony. It's the first time I've ever done this. It will be the last! Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!! It's like the finale of one of those singing competitons like American Idol, where they make it a 2 hour show and not announce the winner for 1 hr. and 57 minutes. Get to it already, you stuffed shirted dumbbells!

For goodness sakes. Daniela's got another *!%%*! qualifier! And I just ate! Dang it. And if she gets past that. we get the relive the '08 nightmare all over again. I'm frustrated. However, as we all know, anything's possible with Dani. Cross fingers and toes!

It's a decent draw. Daniela avoided the really top players in the first round and she should beat a qualifier, although that wasn't the case in Brisbane or Sydney, but hopefully Daniela will be fully fit this week. Ivanovic or Czink will be tough in the second round and if she gets through that it would probably be Jankovic in round three. For what it's worth Ivanovic fans on twitter are quite worried about playing Daniela in the second round.
We'll just take this one match at a time and Daniela has to bring her best tennis against whoever she gets in the first round.

To be totally honest, I'll be delighted if she gets to the 2nd round.

I'd take a final of a tournament any day Alex, but I agree can't be a nice feeling to go into a major having not one a game in your last match. But ita happened to me before. I lost 60 60 actually playing pretty well and wasn't out played where most games went to deuce but my opponent won all the important points.

Anyway back to Daniela, she starts her campaign against Chan. I think Daniela played her in Kolkata in 2007 where Daniela won in straight sets. Really glad Daniela avoided qualifiers such as Tsurenko and Dushevina. Hopefully Daniela can play intelligently on Monday.

Slightly annoyed that she's last on a non televised court.(court 19!) Whereas Ana vs Czink is on Rod Laver..also Daniela has a bad record playing later on in the day. For example vs Hampton at Wimbledon last year.

Good luck Daniela.x

Daniela should be able to beat Chan but Chan won all her matches in qualifying very easily although the only player she beat that I'd heard of was Irina Falconi, but she'll be going in with a bit of momentum.

Chan lost in the first round of Shenzhen to Morita 6-4 6-4. She had a good run at Carlsbad last year getting to the semi-final beating Wickmayer (albeit on retirement), Watson and Jankovic on the way and giving Bartoli a very tough match in the semi. From what I can remember she was bashing the ball from the baseline although she didn't seem that mobile. The rest of the year she didn't really do very much but if she gets hot she could give Daniela problems.

It would have been nice for Daniela to have been on a better court but as she's not seeded and playing a qualifier then unfortunately she's going to get courts like these. As eddy said, it won't be great for Daniela to be waiting all day to play her match as she does better when she has an early start and plays on a bigger court. A lot will depend on Daniela being fully fit and keeping her focus.
This is one of these matches that will be a big relief for Daniela to get through.

Daniela played an exhibition match against Shazza on Margaret Court but Shazza won 7-4.

I'm pretty sure it was games, eddy. Daniela & Shazza just played a set. I'm not sure if they used normal scoring or doubles scoring. I got it from twitter. It was part of the Australian Open kids day.

Edit: some people are saying it was 8-4.