Australian Open

[picachu211]

Lena please beat the crap out of Henin!

[Moralspain]

Thiemo de bakker against roddick first round

Hey, Thiemo is not a bad player, could be dangerous

[fedfan]

Lena please beat the crap out of Henin!

I would love to see Elena win a slam but I think mentally it will be tough for her to beat Justine, plus if Henin is fit she is going to be all over the serve.

[picachu211]

I would love to see Elena win a slam but I think mentally it will be tough for her to beat Justine, plus if Henin is fit she is going to be all over the serve.

She has potentially the toughest road to a Grand Slam title at AO 2010, but you never know how the draw will shape up.

[Coolhand Texas]

Gilles simon pulls out of AO

[Mack2300]

Sorensen has made the main draw Niland was a point away from leading 6-1 5-3 but has just ended up losing the 2nd set

[Otlichno]

Elena can beat up Justine's serve better than Justine can beat up Elena's serve. Justine has the better serve but in terms of returning Elena is probably THE best returner along with Serena on the WTA tour.

[Q. Reese]

I think that Kim's returning ability is great too. You are right about Dementieva. If she can get over serving during the match, she will win a grand slam. Time is running out, and I feel that the best time for her to do so was before the Belgians' comeback from retirement.

[GOA MASTER MDMA]

henin will kick asses

[NARCOSIS2009]

Elena can beat up Justine's serve better than Justine can beat up Elena's serve. Justine has the better serve but in terms of returning Elena is probably THE best returner along with Serena on the WTA tour.

Nope.

Based on return points won (%),

Victoria Azarenka 49.9 (2nd)
Dinara Safina 48.9 (5th)
Maria Sharapova 48.8 (6th)
Marion Bartoli 48.5 (10th)
Elena Dementieva 48.1 (12th)
And Serena Williams is 46th, the spaces between 1st, 2nd-5th are filled with no namers that played 3 matches last year so they dont count.

[Q. Reese]

Nice point Narcosis, but I think the power from the return counts more. That is good that these ladies were able to convert the percentages, but how do they hit the returns of a person's serve back?

Maybe, the server dumped the ball into the net after she returned the ball weakly.

I think Serena hits the most aggressive with returns. Davenport is another good example too.

[Otlichno]

Davenports was great but the fact that if the serve was good enough to actually get her to move she would just kind of push it back, another reason why I continue to believe Dementieva's return is one of the best is that getting an ace on her is incredibly difficult and getting a return to easily put away is a very rare happening when facing Dementieva.

[fedfan]

I think it's fair to say most players are going to win a lot of points against the powder-puff WTA serves, it's how well you return on the big points and whether you can consolidate on your own that matters.

Your right though it is very tough to get aces past Dementieva and her serve has improved but she has still to prove it will stand up under the nerves. Once the rally starts though she is definately more than a match for anyone.

[fedfan]

Day 1 order of play is out. Notable matches Sharapova v Kirilenko, Blake v Clement, Cilic v Santoro, Stepanek v Karlovic, Murray v Anderson and Dokic v Kleybanova.

Tought openers for both Blake and Stepanek and Anderson has a massive serve. Interesting to see Sharapova's form, she should have way to much for her fellow Russian and hopefully Dokic can beat Kleybanova as she did last year.

[emate007]

Sharapova v Kirilenko

There's usually more photographers than fans whenever these two play.