In life and in tennis we like to recognize some patterns and predict future based on current facts. Our stats analyst Omair made sure to present us the historical patterns of the Australian part of the season and the chances of an Australian Open tune-up tournament winner to lift the trophy at the Australian Open. You'll see that the Sydney winner is the most likely, which was the case this year with Victoria Azarenka.

A few days before the Australian Open I found some interesting things regarding the winners of the Australian Open warm-up events and their performance at the Australian Open that year. There are four warm-up events which pave the way for the players to get into some form for the first Grand Slam of the year:

• Brisbane
• Auckland
• Hobart
• Sydney

Let's have a look at how well this year's winners performed at the Australian Open and how they compared to the winners of previous years and their performances at the Australian Open that year. Please note that for this article I used the results of Sydney and Auckland from 1988 onwards, since it was from 1988 that all the players played from the first round of the 128 player draw for the Grand Slam.

BRISBANE

• Best Australian Open result in the respective year: quarterfinals
• 2012: Kaia Kanepi won Brisbane and lost in the second round of the Australian Open

The Brisbane tournament started way back in 1997, and was known as Gold Coast back then. The name of the tournament was changed in 2009 to the Brisbane International. This year the Brisbane event went Premier. The first ever winner of the tournament back in 1997 was Elena Likhovtseva who defeated Ai Sugiyama in the final. Elena Likhovtseva could not carry on the momentum to the Australian Open and lost in the first round, while Sugiyama lost in the second round of the Australian Open that year.

The best result a Brisbane winner so far had at the Australian Open was a quarterfinal showing. Three players achieved that feat. Venus Williams was the first Brisbane player to reach the Australian Open quarterfinal back in 2002 when she won the Brisbane event. Venus lost to 8th-seeded Monica Seles in three sets. Patty Schnyder in 2005 and Petra Kvitova in 2011 followed in the footsteps of Venus Willaims and went on to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open after winning the event in the respective years. Schnyder lost in three sets to 19th-seeded Nathalie Dechy, while Kvitova lost in straight sets to second-seeded Vera Zvonareva.

Kaia Kanepi won the Brisbane event this year. Based on the history of the Brisbane winners and their performance at the Australian Open, Kanepi's chances of making it out the second round were 67%.

Twice in the tournament's 15-year history has the Brisbane winner lost in the second round, Kanepi with her second round showing this year made it thrice in the 16-year history of the tournament. Many dubbed Kanepi as the dark horse for the Australian Open after her strong showing at the Brisbane event, however, Kanepi could not carry that momentum and fell victim of Ekaterina Makarova, who would go on to crush Serena Williams, five-time Australian Open champion, in the fourth round.

Brisbane winner has yet to move beyond the quarterfinal stage of the Australian Open, and with the event going Premier this year, this statistic will for sure change in the years to come. Although, I had hoped that this statistic will change this year since the field at Brisbane was very strong with the likes of Kim Clijsters, Serena Williams, Samantha Stosur.

AUCKLAND

• Best Australian Open result in the respective year: semifinals
• 2012: Zheng Jie won Auckland and lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open Read more »

At the ASB Classic in Auckland, world No.34 Zheng Jie won her first title since 2006, but the final match was an unfinished battle, as her opponent Flavia Pennetta retired at 2-6 6-3 2-0 with a low back injury. We're only a week into the tennis season, and the number of WTA players injured or ill is close to ten.

In the first round Zheng defeated Ayumi Morita, in the second eighth seeded Monica Niculescu, in the quarterfinals Lucie Hradecka, then third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova for the first time in their seven meetings, and finally Pennetta.

Zheng's first title came in Hobart in 2005, and since winning Estoril and Stockholm in 2006 she hasn't clinched any titles, even though she played two Grand Slam semifinals – at Wimbledon 2008 and Australian Open 2010.

Regarding Pennetta's injury, she started feeling it at 4-2 in the first set and an MRI scan will reveal how serious it is. (photo via ASB Classic)

Now that China’s Li Na has won Roland Garros I decided to use the opportunity to make a language point about the proper usage of Chinese names, as I have noticed a lot of confusion around.

The most important thing is to understand that the first part of a Chinese name is the family name and the second part is the given name, i.e. the order is reverse compared to the Western cultures. Therefore, Li is the family name, Na is the given name.

There is another peculiarity: if you meet the Chinese tennis star in the street, it would be perfectly natural to call her "Li Na".

Personal names are used when referring to adult friends or to children, although, unlike in the west, referring to somebody by their full name (including surname) is common even among friends, especially if the person's full name is only two syllables. – Wikipedia

A correct way of formal addressing would be Ms. Li. Read more »

Zheng Jie marked the beginning of the 2010 season with an Australian Open semifinal, but the Chinese will not get back to Melbourne to try to repeat the success, because of her left wrist injury. Zheng sustained the injury at the US Open, and worsened it by playing doubles all the way to the semifinals. Then she skipped all the post-US Open events because of the injury which even required a surgery.

Zheng is currently ranked 26th in the world, but her ranking will drop after the Australian Open, when she loses the points earned by the 2010 semifinal. (photo: Nick Bollettieri)

Zheng Jie dethroned Elena Dementieva in the third round of the Rogers Cup with a 7-6(3) 6-4 victory in their first career meeting. The Chinese has recorded her seventh Top 10 win.

Before defeating the fourth-seeded Dementieva, Zheng made one more upset, coming back from 7-5 4-2 down to beat seed No.16 Aravane Rezai in the second round. Zheng is now the only unseeded player left in the Rogers Cup draw.

Second seed Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating 15th-seeded Flavia Pennetta 4-6 6-3 6-1 for her fourth win in as many meetings with the Italian. Next for Wozniacki is French Open champion Francesca Schiavone who ended Dinara Safina’s seven-match winning streak in Montreal by defeating the Russian 6-4 6-3.

Fifth seed Kim Clijsters followed up her second round thriller against Bethanie Mattek-Sands with an easy victory over Kaia Kanepi, 6-2 6-1.

The Rogers Cup quarterfinals are set now: Marion Bartoli vs. Victoria Azarenka, Kim Clijsters vs. Vera Zvonareva, Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Zheng Jie, and Francesca Schiavone vs. Caroline Wozniacki. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)

Grand Slams are the places where tennis players want to look their best and sponsors want to use the opportunity of huge publicity to market their products. Let's have a look at what women's tennis stars are sporting during one such event, Roland Garros 2010 in Paris.

Venus Williams raised many eyebrows by her lingerie-like black dress. But the dress raises all the eyebrows when in action!

Sorana Cirstea lost on Day one to Svetlana Kuznetsova, but her adidas dress can win all the awards, if you asked me. Just like Ana Ivanovic's.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands is wearing her cool tube socks and looks sporty. Well, Venus took Bethanie's role of ball boy distractor. Caroline Wozniacki, nice dress but nothing new, really nothing. Read more »

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki was forced to leave her Polsat Warsaw Open quarterfinal against Zheng Jie because of the right ankle injury sustained in Charleston in April which has been bothering her ever since. The world No.3 Wozniacki lost the first set 6-3 and then retired, increasing Zheng’s record in their career meetings to 3-1.

Even though Wozniacki said a little more than a week ago that she expected to be ready for the French Open, the injury is still causing her pain and her French Open appearance is very uncertain (the tournament starts in three days).

Here’s the Dane’s statement after the loss to the 26th-ranked Zheng.

"I felt some pain from the beginning of the match today. I spoke to the physio and she said it would only get worse. I'm really sad. I wanted to win this match. I wanted to win the whole tournament. But health is the most important thing, and I didn't want to risk having a worse injury." (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, photo: Stephane Martinache)

Seed No.18 Zheng Jie overcame tenth seed Maria Sharapova 6-3 2-6 6-3 after two hours and 43 minutes of topsy-turvy marathon in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open.

Sharapova made 14 double faults, 62 unforced errors and was broken seven times during the match. Zheng broke Sharapova's serve three times in the first set, then the Russian leveled after the second set which lasted one hour and eight minutes, and finally, Zheng came back from 3-1 down in the decider to win the match.

"She's like a ball machine. She hits a lot of balls back, hits them hard and deep. I should have done a much better job on her serve because that is definitely one of her weaker parts of the game," said the world No.13 Sharapova, who received treatment for her right elbow during the match.

The 26-year-old Chinese, a surprise semifinalist at this year's Australian Open, will next play Australian wildcard Alicia Molik. (source: Reuters, photo: Nick Bollettieri)

World No.21 Zheng Jie has followed in the fashionable footsteps of most top women’s tennis players and posed for Asian All Sports magazine, or better called 全体育.

The Chinese two-time Grand Slam semifinalist has always been very cute, but it is refreshing to see her looking glamorous for a magazine photo shoot.

Zheng is currently playing the $220,000 Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur. (source: HCFoo's Tennis Blog)

Chinese tennis stars Zheng Jie and Li Na have arrived home after their enormous success in Australia and were welcomed by crowds of fans and media.

Zheng and Li made history for China when they reached the 2010 Australian Open semifinals. Actually, never before had two Chinese players been in the second week of a major at the same time. Moreover, Zheng and Li are now both within Top 20 in the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour rankings – Zheng is No.20 and Li has become the first Chinese Top 10 player by reaching No.10.

The national celebration of Zheng’s and Li’s arrival took place in Beijing. They answered questions from fans and media, and donated their equipment to the Chinese Tennis Association's Youth Foundation. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications China President Roger Eriksson presented Zheng and Li with special gifts for their achievements. (source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)