Today at the Sony Open Tennis in Miami Li Na played her first match since injuring her left ankle in the Australian Open final a month and a half ago and the comeback was successful, a 6-3 6-1 victory over world No.42 Kiki Bertens. The fifth-seeded Li won the second-round match without dropping serve, ending it with ten straight points won. The Chinese is happy with how her game worked today and said she entered the encounter excited rather than nervous.

World No.1 Serena Williams was another highlight of the day, beating Flavia Pennetta 6-1 6-1. The match was less straightforward than the score suggests. Serena faced seven break points, but amazingly defended them all, and earned as much as 18 break points on Pennetta's serve, but the Italian's percentage of saving them was not as good as her opponent's and she was broken six times to lose the match in one hour and 17 minutes. Serena was playing her first match since becoming WTA No.1 again.

Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska had a quick passage into the third round, beating Hsieh Su-Wei 6-3 6-2, while seed No.7 Petra Kvitova and seed No.9 Caroline Wozniacki both battled from a set down: Kvitova to beat Peng Shuai 5-7 6-2 6-2, Wozniacki against Karolina Pliskova 5-7 6-3 6-3. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

In a dramatic and scrappy final that had it all – twisted ankles, bumps on the head, preceding controversy, a crowd favorite player and interrupting fireworks – Victoria Azarenka prevailed 4-6 6-4 6-3 against Li Na on Rod Laver Arena and won her second Grand Slam title, extending her streak in January matches to 21-0.

Li opened the meeting with a double fault and allowed to be broken right away, but Azarenka soon found herself 5-2 down and even though she approached her opponent to be just one game down, 5-4, and saved three set points, the first section of the match ended just as it began, with a double fault, this time by the top-seeded Azarenka.

The second set started with Azarenka's 3-0 momentum and just as Li got a break back she went over on her left ankle and started hopping, clearly hardly putting weight on her foot. There was a medical timeout to tape the ankle up and as the match resumed Li hung in there and leveled to 4-4, before losing the set 6-4. Read more »

Maria Sharapova reached the Australian Open semifinals, losing just nine games on the way, which is the tournament record, and will next face Li Na, who reached the final four by ending Agnieszka Radwanska's perfect 13-0 winning streak of 2013.

Can you believe that Sharapova has not only lost just nine games in five matches at the Australian Open, but she dropped her serve just twice! Sharapova's quarterfinal opponent Ekaterina Makarova was wiped off the court in 66 minutes, 6-2 6-2, but she was one of the players that earned a break against the second seed this fortnight, alongside Venus Williams.

Li has now made the semifinals in three of the past four years at the Australian Open. Even the player with the best win-loss record this season, actually the only player that beat her in 2013 (in Sydney semifinals), couldn't stop her at the tournament where she feels at home. Li won an unpredictable first set against Radwanska, that lasted more than an hour, and from 0-2 down in the second set she took control by winning five straight games. In total, there were 10 breaks of serve and final score was 7-5 6-3.

The semifinal will be a match between the Australian Open runner-ups of the two previous years. Sharapova leads 8-4 in their meetings so far, including all the three they had last season.

Tomorrow we're having the remaining two quarterfinals: Victoria Azarenka vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova and Serena Williams vs. Sloane Stephens. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

After the seventh day of the Australian Open we have two quarterfinal pairs in the bottom half of the draw: Li Na [6] vs. Agnieszka Radwanska [4] and Maria Sharapova [2] vs. Ekaterina Makarova [19].

Li Na was broken in the first game of the match and climbed back from 5-3 and 6-5 down in the tiebreak to take the first set and then cruise through the second against seed No.18 Julia Goerges for a 7-6(6) 6-1 victory and her first Grand Slam quarterfinal since her French Open triumph one and a half years ago. Player with best win-loss record of the season will be her next opponent – Agnieszka Radwanska, who improved to 13-0 in matches and 26-0 in sets in 2013 by beating Ana Ivanovic 6-2 6-4, ending the encounter with two aces in a row. Li and Radwanska have an interesting recent history. Li quite routinely won their last three meetings in 2012, but Radwanska was victorious in their only 2013 clash in the semifinals of Sydney. Overall, Li leads 5-4.

Maria Sharapova reached the quarterfinals losing just five games! In her last match, against Kirsten Flipkens, the Russian's score was 6-1 6-0, against Venus Williams she lost four games, and in her first two matches she gave out no games to her opponents. Sharapova next faces the same player as last year at the quarterfinal stage of the Australian Open – compatriot Ekaterina Makarova, who upset injury-hampered Angelique Kerber 7-5 6-4, the highest-seeded victim in the women's draw. Sharapova leads Makarova 4-0 in their head-to-head record. (photo: Tidalist)

Omair has been a regular contributor on Women's Tennis Blog, but now he has his own website and in the days leading up to the Australian Open he employed his love of stats to predict how Top 8 seeds will perform at the first Grand Slam of the season.

Omair's position in the articles is purely statistical, as he evaluated players' chances based on the past performance of players having the same seeding and based on the previous Australian Open results of the respective players. It's nice to see a statistical aspect, but you know that much more plays a part in whether a player will succeed, like who is in their section of the draw, possible injuries, mental preparation, etc.

Nevertheless, let's see the statistical analysis for each of our Top 8 stars:

• Victoria Azarenka and Australian Open 2013 - No.1 seed
• Maria Sharapova and Australian Open 2013 - No.2 seed
• Serena Williams and Australian Open 2013 - No.3 seed
• Agnieszka Radwanska and Australian Open 2013 - No.4 seed
• Angelique Kerber and Australian Open 2013 - No.5 seed
• Li Na and Australian Open 2013 - No.6 seed
• Sara Errani and Australian Open 2013 - No.7 seed
• Petra Kvitova and Australian Open 2013 - No.8 seed

Great work, Omair! I know you poured in a lot of your free time in these articles!

Subsequent addition: Check out Omair's analysis of the women's singles draw.