In Omair's statistical preview of the Australian Open quarterfinal between Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska the numbers were more on Radwanska's side, however, the Pole lost 6-7(0) 6-0 6-2. Omair would now like to have a closer look at what happened there.

When Victoria Azarenka entered the Rod Laver Arena today, she had something going on in her mind, her possibility of overtaking the top spot from Caroline Wozniacki, and that thing seemed to affect her in the first set tiebreak where she could not win a single point against Agnieszka Radwanska. But from then on, it was all Azarenka and she solidified her status as title contender with this win.

Radwanska walked on to the Rod Laver Arena today with a mission of her own, she wanted to make it fifth time lucky and enter into her first Grand Slam semifinal match and it seemed that she would, after the first set. But from then on Radwanska could not keep that level and lost to the red hot Azarenka.

Radwanska, just like Wozniacki in her quarterfinal, entered the match with cleaner stats, and Azarenka, just like Kim Clijsters, entered the match with not so good stats, but both Clijsters and Azarenka emerged out of their matches as the cleaner players and winners.

AGNIESZKA RADWANSKA STATS

Radwanska entered the match with 75% points won on her first serves when they landed in and her first serve percentage did not flop, but her winning percentage on the first serve dropped dramatically, and to add to that so did her winning percentage on second serves. You can never win a match against Azarenka by winning just 29% of your second serves or 47% of your first serves. As if that was not enough, Radwanska entered the match with a positive winner-UE differential of 27, but came out of the match with a negative 15 winner-UE differential. Radwanska will have to wait for the next Grand Slam to see if she can manage to make it to the semifinals. Read more »

After showing you his numbers analysis for the quarterfinal between Caroline Wozniacki and Kim Clijsters, our stats expert Omair made another Australian Open quarterfinal preview for you, Victoria Azarenka vs. Agnieszka Radwanska.

Agnieszka Radwanska has lost a set so far at the Australian Open, while Victoria Azarenka is yet to lose more than four games in a set. Despite that, when we look at numbers, Radwanska comes out as the cleaner one.

If we look at the Grand Slam results, we see that it is the sixth quarterfinal appearance for Azarenka and fifth for Radwanska, while Radwanska has yet to move beyond the quarterfinal stage of a major tournament, Azarenka did it at last year's Wimbledon when she lost to the eventual champion, Petra Kvitova, in the semis. Interestingly, it was Azarenka's fifth Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance when she finally moved beyond the quarterfinal stage, and this is Radwanska's fifth quarterfinal appearance. Azarenka and Radwanska are friends – will Radwanska follow in the footsteps of her friend and make it fifth time lucky or will she fade away, only time will tell us.

If we look at their head-to-head record, Azarenka has won six of their nine encounters and their latest coming at this year's Sydney in the semifinal, where Azarenka won in three sets.

Let us have a look at what the numbers suggest about their form so far at the Australian Open.

When we look at numbers, they are quite close in almost all departments. However, Azarenka has an upper hand by a huge margin in the 2nd serve winning percentage, but she also has a huge number of double faults, averaging at 4+ per match so far in the tournament (equal to Kim Clijsters' double faults). Read more »

Dear readers, our now already famous stats expert Omair couldn't resist the urge and found time in his busy schedule to analyse the upcoming Australian Open quarterfinal between Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki. Numbers speak in Wozniacki's favor, but is everything in numbers? Let's see if we can conclude something.

There are so many things you plan on doing, but you you never get to complete them. That is what happened with me, when I had planned on making a probability analysis for the Australian Open 2012, it never got complete and then I got heck of busy. Being an audit trainee no doubt has its perks of excessive late sittings and no weekends, but I just could not resist my urge to analyse the Australian Open quarterfinals, using the performance of the quarterfinalists so far in the tournament. I will be using the stats to look into the quarterfinal showing, as to who has a better shot at making the semis. Let's first analyse Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki.

Kim got her ankle twisted in her fourth round epic battle against Li Na. Wozniacki won't get a better chance than this to avenge her previous losses to the former world No. 1, after all it was Clijsters who denied Wozniacki the taste of her first major when she beat the Dane in the US Open final in 2009.

Wozniacki has yet to lose a set in this tournament, while Clijsters has already lost one to Li, and was on the brink of defeat in straight sets but turned it around to emerge as a winner. Thousand dollar questions are: Will Clijsters' ankle hold to let her complete in the last Australian Open of her career? Will Clijsters have enough in tank to battle past Wozniacki who has no doubt the best defensive skills at the moment?

Clijsters is 2-0 against Wozniacki, but their last meeting at the year-end Championships in 2010 went the distance. Let us have a look at what the numbers say when we see each player's first four matches at the Aussie Open 2012:

Wozniacki has +8% advantage in the first serves, but what is important is that although Wozniacki has higher 1st serve percentage, Clijsters' 1st serve winning percentage is much higher than Wozniacki's, but so are her double faults. Clijsters has been serving 4+ double faults on average in each match so far, which means losing her serve at least once in each match by only double faults.

What is more worrying is Clijsters' ratio of winners and unforced errors. If you look at the number of winners, Wozniacki is not far behind, but if you look at the number of unforced errors Wozniacki comes out as a cleaner one by a huge margin. Clijsters has a differential of negative 24, whereas Wozniacki has a positive differential of 4. Break point conversion rate, receiving points won percentage again go in Wozniacki's favour. The department where Wozniacki lags is the points won at net. While Clijsters has lost only one point out of her 18 net trips (95%), Wozniacki managed to win only 68% of her net trips. Read more »

The fourth round of the Australian Open feautred a rematch of last year's final and the outcome was the same – Kim Clijsters defeated Li Na. The score 4-6 7-6(6) 6-4 took the Belgian to the quarterfinals, but within those numbers hide four match points, a painful ankle injury at 3-3 in the first set and a gruelling fight of both players.

With her foot thickly wrapped and 2-6 in the second set tiebreak, Clijsters started her big comeback by winning six points in a row to take the match to the third set, which she opened with a 4-0 lead. Li then slowly recovered to 5-4 down, but it was Clijsters who closed out the match to her advantage.

After the victory, the Belgian winner of four Grand Slam titles said that it was one of her best comebacks, while the disappointed Li can live off the number of matches she won in January, a great improvement from her horrible second half of 2011.  Read more »

Besides doing yearly fashion retrospections for specific WTA players, Women's Tennis Blog is famous for reviewing outfits for every Grand Slam. The Australian Open is entering its second week and the time is just right for us to have a closer look at what the players are wearing. Last year Venus Williams grabbed all the attention with her EleVen designs, but the American is sadly absent this time. In 2012 the spotlight is more evenly distributed and brands such as Nike, Adidas and Fila are leading the pack.

Caroline Wozniacki’s love life is booming, at least its online representation suggests that, and her fashion designer Stella McCartney opted for the color of passion for the world No.1’s Australian Open. Wozniacki accessorized the red dress with a heart-shaped Danish flag pendant that her boyfriend Rory McIlroy gave her for Christmas.

Adidas Adizero used a shade of red for their predominantly peach dress worn by Ana Ivanovic, Daniela Hantuchova and Sorana Cirstea.

Serena Williams is wearing a blue Nike dress with wide tank straps and pleated bottom.

Read more »