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 »

Playing against defending champion Li Na in the final of the Apia International Sydney, Victoria Azarenka dominated the first set 6-2 before Li stormed through the second without facing a break point and by losing just one game. The odds continued to be on Li’s side in the beginning of the third set when she broke Azarenka’s serve in the opening game, but from then on Azarenka was writing the story of their match and took out the last year’s champion 6-2 1-6 6-3. Read more »

Caroline Wozniacki opened her competitive tennis season at the Apia International Sydney and after surviving the three-set challenge against Dominika Cibulkova in the second round, the top-seeded Dane fell in the quarterfinals to Agnieszka Radwanska. On the other hand, world No.2 Petra Kvitova stormed into the semifinals with a 6-0 6-4 victory over Daniela Hantuchova, last week's Brisbane finalist, and is now only two matches away from overtaking the top ranking from Wozniacki.

In the previous round Wozniacki worked her way past Dominika Cibulkova  7-5 2-6 6-4, the player she lost to in her opening match in Sydney last year. In the quarterfinals, Wozniacki was serving for the match at 6-3 5-4, but Radwanska complicated the scenario by winning three straight games to take the match to the third set. Somewhere in the middle of the third set Wozniacki had her left wrist strapped and looked more and more affected by the injury. Finally she lost 3-6 7-5 6-2 and the seriousness of her injury will be determined tomorrow.

Last year's Sydney champion Li Na, who defeated Lucie Safarova 6-2 7-6 (3), will be Kvitova's opponent in one semifinal, while the other semifinal will be played between Victoria Azarenka, who beat Marion Bartoli 7-5 6-4, and Agnieszka Radwanska. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Samantha Stosur lost 6-2 6-4 in the first round of the Apia International Sydney to Francesca Schiavone, which is her second straight early loss at a tournament on her home soil this year, ahead of the Australian Open, and the big expectations and her own desire to do well at the Grand Slam in her country, following her US Open title win, seem to be catching up with big-hitting Stosur.

When she won her maiden major title in September 2011 by beating Serena Williams in the final, Stosur couldn't wait to start the same quest in Australia, but now that the moment has come, she lost her second match in Brisbane and her opening match in Sydney. The 27-year-old is admitting to be falling under the pressure:

That's what makes the loss so difficult, Melbourne is coming up and I want to start playing well. I think today I certainly didn't handle that (expectation) side of things at all well.

I went into it with the right frame of mind, and got out there and it (the crowd support) kind of hit me. It did kind of surprise me how much it kind of hamstrung me today.

Stosur played the Australian Open main draw nine times and has never been past the fourth round. Do you think she will overcome the pressure and improve her Australian Open result armed with a Grand Slam triumph experience? (photo: Stephane Martinache)

Russian Elena Dementieva won the Medibank International Sydney title for the second successive year with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Serena Williams in the final.

Williams was troubled by a sore left knee, but said to have suffered just a little bit and gave all the credit to Dementieva, who won the match on the first of her three match points.

The American is not worried about her fitness for the upcoming first Grand Slam of the season and said that the knee hurts just a little bit and that strapping can ease the pain. (source: BBC, photo GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)

Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva reached the final of the Medibank International Sydney. The American did it the more complicated way, while the Russian cruised past her semifinal opponent.

The top-seeded Williams had lost the first set against France's Aravane Rezai and trailed 5-2 in the second set before her vast experience once again took charge and she recovered to win 3-6 7-5 6-4.

Contrary to Williams, defending champion and fifth seed Dementieva wasn’t threatened in her semifinal match, and defeated Victoria Azarenka 6-3 6-1.

Williams has a 7-4 career record against Dementieva. They played as much as six times last year and both of them won three matches. (Photo by Dima Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images)

World number three Svetlana Kuznetsova will start her 2010 season and the Australian Open campaign at the Medibank International Sydney.

The Russian is the fifth Top 10 player to join the Sydney field after No.1 Serena Williams, No.5 and defending champion Elena Dementieva, No.4 Caroline Wozniacki and No.7 Victoria Azarenka.

It will be Kuznetsova’s fifth straight participation at the event. In 2008 she was runner-up to then world No.1 Justine Henin. (source: Medibank International Sydney, photo by our reader Jacob)

It is only January and Elena Dementieva has already won two WTA singles titles in 2009.

After winning in Auckland, beating Elena Vesnina in an all-Russian final, Dementieva reached one more final right away, and won that one too, beating another compatriot, Dinara Safina, 6-3 2-6 6-1.

The world No.4 Dementieva will head into next week's Australian Open riding on a wave of 10 straight wins. The Beijing Olympics gold medalist Dementieva has now won 13 career WTA singles titles, but there are still no Grand Slam trophies in her biography.

Dementieva and Safina are now tied at 5-5 in career meetings, with Dementieva having won all those played on hardcourts.

Oh her way to the title the third-seeded Dementieva defeated Ekaterina Makarova, Jarmila Gajdosova, sixth seed Agnieszka Radwanska, top seed Serena Williams, and finally second seed Dinara Safina. (photo via Sydney International)

Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva scored her ninth successive win, beating top seed Serena Williams in the semifinals of the Medibank International Sydney. In the final, the in-form Russian will meet another Russian, Dinara Safina, who advanced with a victory over Ai Sugiyama.

Safina, the second seed, was the first of the two to advance to the final, seeing off the Japanese veteran 6-4 7-6(3). This first semifinal was more competitive than the following one, as Safina won a tight opening set and had to come back from a break down in the second set to make it past Sugiyama.

The third-seeded Dementieva, who has already won one title in 2009, beat Williams 6-3 6-1 in just 68 minutes. After losing their first four encounters in straight sets, Dementieva has now won three in a row.  Just a small addition, remember that Williams had saved multiple match points in two of her matches earlier in the week.

Dementieva and Safina have played nine times so far, with Safina leading the series 5-4. However, all five of her wins have come on clay or grass, while all four of Dementieva's have come on hardcourt, the surface of the Medibank International Sydney. (source and photo: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)

In the quarterfinals of the Medibank International Sydney, top seed Serena Williams was pushed to the limit by Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, who had three match points but failed to convert them.

The world No.12 Wozniacki was on a good way to beat Williams, when she broke the American to lead 6-5 in the final set. However, Wozniacki failed to serve out, wasting three match points in the process and Williams eventually won the match 6-7 6-3 7-6.

Remember, Williams also saved four match points in her first-round encounter with Australia’s Samantha Stosur.

In the other quarterfinals, Svetlana Kuznetsova pulled out of the match with Ai Sugiyama with a stomach problem, Elena Dementieva scored her eighth straight win this season beating Agniezska Radwanska 6-2 5-7 6-4, while Dinara Safina, who will meet Sugiyama in the semis, defeated Alize Cornet 6-3 6-4. (source: Reuters, photo by our reader Jacob)