The Miami tournament had many upsets along the way thus making for an interesting tournament. We are now moving closer to the next Grand Slam tournament which is the French Open. It will be interesting to see if Williams can take the next step in claiming the Grand Slam. I think she may need a bit more time on clay in the lead up to the tournament to have any chance.

The open also threw up many other surprises. Probably the biggest took place even before a tennis ball was served at the open. Justine Henin-Herdenne, now just Justine Henin, withdrew from the Australian summer of tennis due to personal reasons. We now know that the reason was she had separated from her husband Pierre-Yves.

Getting back to the on-court action the biggest upset came in the fourth round when the defending champion and no. 2 seed Amelie Mauresmo was defeated by then world no. 70 Lucie Safarova 6-4, 6-3. As I expected Safarova could not carry her form through to the next match and she lost in the quarter’s to Nicole Vaidisova. Another interesting upset came when Israeli women Shahar Peer defeated the former US Open champion and no. 3 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova also in the fourth round. Peer became the first Israeli women to reach a grand slam quarter final. Peer met Williams in the quarter final and almost took the match before bowing out 8-6 in the third set.

Now that the Australian Open has been claimed by Serena Williams it is time to look at who we can expect to feature in big time tournaments later in 2007. Vaidisova is someone who has impressed me. She lost in the semi’s to Williams and as a result has pushed her ranking up from 12 to 9. Vaidisova reached the semi’s at Roland Garros in 2006 and will now be looking to take the next step to reach a grand slam final. Li Na of China is steadily moving up the rankings as is Peer. Can they push into the top ten of women’s tennis? Anna Chakvetadze is another player to keep an eye on. She gave Sharapova a tough match when losing her quarter-final matchup. Even though Samantha Stosur lost in the second round I think she will have a breakthrough year. Jankovic is still in my books as a player of the future.
As Williams is the only player now able to win the grand slam for 2007 I look forward with interest to see how she plays on the clay courts of Roland Garros.

Next year I will look to be reporting to you from court side at the Australian Open. Ideally I would love to be one of the photographers in the trenches.