Week #2 preview: Sydney, Hobart

Sydney (AUS), Premier, $600,000
The first Premier tournament of the new WTA Tour calendar and the most important test before the Australian Open will take place in Sydney. The field will be great, with 8 of the 12 best players in the WTA Tour and almost all the Main Draw players in the Top 50. American Serena Williams will be the 1st seed, but she may not be in perfect physical condition as she wasn't able to play in Hopman Cup last week. With Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Nadia Petrova amongst the seeds, it is very likely that the title will go to Russia. But youngsters Agnieszka Radwanska, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka and Dominika Cibulkova will try to upset the top favourites.

Hobart (AUS), International, $220,000
Very open and interesting draw in this International tournament in Tasmania. Top-20 Flavia Pennetta, Patty Schnyder and Anna Chakvetadze will be the higher 3 seeds, but there will be lot of dangerous players out there that could surprise them, like Jie Zheng, Agnes Szavay, Alona Bondarenko, Nicole Vaidisova, Aleksandra Wozniak or Shahar Peer. And also many young talents looking for upsets, like Magdalena Rybarikova, Marina Erakovic, Petra Kvitova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.