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.

Last year our great contributor John Bolan merged his courage and talent for tennis predictions and shared with us as early as in January how he thought the season-ending WTA Top 10 would look like. And that wasn't all. He asked you to join him in predictions and James, the reader who turned out to be the best predictor, was awarded an autograph of a WTA star.

John Bolan receiving autograph of Victoria Azarenka

As we all enjoyed the little project, we decided to repeat it this year. John has made his 2013 predictions (I have to say that he sent me the finished article way before New Year's Eve and before the WTA action started, but I was a bit slow in putting it up together!), and you are more than welcome to comment on John's picks, to share your own Top 10 selection in the comments below this article and then we get to wait for the season to finish to see how we all fared. The best predictor will win an autograph of a Top 10 WTA player, so there's even an incentive to take some time and employ your foretelling skills! Now I'm giving the word to John!

It isn't easy to predict the Top 10 players for 2013 this early, but these are my choices for the end of 2013:

1. Maria Sharapova
2. Victoria Azarenka
3. Agnieszka Radwanska
4. Serena Williams
5. Li Na
6. Caroline Wozniacki
7. Samantha Stosur
8. Petra Kvitova
9. Sara Errani
10. Angelique Kerber

I have tried my best to keep personal preferences out of my thoughts while choosing these players. Instead, I checked out the most recent head-to-head matches, the number of tournaments played the past two years and injury reports. Injuries always have a big effect on the outcome of the Top 10. Vera Zvonareva and Andrea Petkovic are not included because they remain out of action and will not play in Australia this year. Read more »

Awaiting Serena Williams in the Brisbane International semifinals, Victoria Azarenka had a lot to fear, considering her 0-5 record against the American in 2012 and 1-11 all time, but her bigger enemy turned out to be a bad pedicure. Her big toe got infected so much that it was too painful to move and she had to withdraw from the tournament half an hour before her semifinal was scheduled to start.

Azarenka has struggled with the problem for about ten days. Eventually, she had to have a part of her right toe nail removed and she didn't have enough time to recover for the semifinal, plus, she didn't want to endanger her title defense at the Australian Open.

Serena is now through to the final of the Premier-level Brisbane International, where she will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who stopped lucky loser Lesia Tsurenko, first-time WTA semifinalist, with a 4-6 6-1 6-2 win. Serena has won 51 of her last 53 matches! Plus, she's 3-0 against Pavlyuchenkova. (photo: sr_cranks)

World No.1 Victoria Azarenka advanced to the semifinals of the Brisbane International with a 6-1 6-0 victory over Ksenia Pervak, the qualifier who upset former No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the first round, but had little left in her tank after two third-set tiebreaks in wins over the Dane and Urszula Radwanska.

The Brisbane tournament debuted in 2009 and Azarenka was its first champion, but back than it was a lower-level tournament, i.e. International, while in 2012 it was upgraded to Premier. Last season Azarenka's Australian swing was perfect, with the Sydney and Australian Open titles, but this is the first time since the inaugural year that Azarenka is playing Brisbane. Another thing to note about Brisbane is that in 2013 its prize money has increased to $1 million, while last year it was $655,000, and before it was $220,000.  Read more »

Victoria Azarenka had a stellar start of the 2012 season with 26 straight matches won, including four titles, one of which was the Australian Open, and a rise to the No.1 ranking. Her tennis has never been better, but how good was the Belarusian in the fashion department during 2012? Let's see!

Azarenka played her first tournament of the year in the Nike Women's Holiday Set Point Graphic items that she exposed en route to her 2011 Luxembourg title, Tokyo semis and the WTA Championships final.

New apparel was introduced at the Australian Open. Azarenka paired a blue Nike Women's Spring Pure Tie-Break Graphic Tank with an open back and white shorts. Read more »