Jo Konta (Great Britain)
Age: 26
World Ranking: 9
In the absence of Andy Murray, England expects greatness from this adopted Australian-Hungarian. Troubled too by a hip problem recently – hopefully not as serious as the Scots’s – Konta has made the quarter finals and semi-finals her in the past two years. Lost out to Svitolina in Brisbane, and she is up against World No 92 Madison Brengle in the first round.
Elina Svitolina (Ukraine)
Age: 23
World Ranking: 4
This one-time mixed doubles partner of Jamie Murray’s has won ten tour titles on her career to date, including the Brisbane title this year, and earned more than $7m. Briefly coached by Justine Henin, Svitolina reached the semi-finals here last year and could be primed to go further this time around.
Ashleigh Barty (Australia)
Age: 21
World Ranking: 17
The Sydney international tournament became an impromptu ‘Barty party’ with this Queenslander reaching the final where she went down to a re-born Angelique Kerber. Amazingly took a stint out of the sport in 2015 when she concentrate on cricket but this pocket rocket is up to 17 in the world and is giving home fans hopes of their first title since Chris O’Neil in 1978.
Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia)
Age: 20
World Ranking: 7
The women’s championships at Melbourne Park is wide open, so why not a second coming for this prodigiously talented young player from Riga on the back of last year’s triumph at Roland Garros? Tough opener against the veteran Francesca Schiavone and patchy form guide which includes an exhibition win against Serena Williams and first round defeats to Ekaterina Makarova and Krystina Pliskova but unplayable on her day.
Maria Sharapova (Russia)
Age: 30
World Ranking: 47
Continues to be a lightning rod for controversy, as Australian Open organisers chose her to bring the trophy on court, not the savviest PR move considering her recent purdah for using the drop meldonium. There was much to admire, though, about Sharapova’s run at the US Open and a tournament without Serena Williams is wide open.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here