Champion mums add depth to Australian Open women’s field

MELBOURNE – One of Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Coco Gauff look most likely to add to their Grand Slam collection at the Jan 14-28 Australian Open, but a clutch of returning champion mums spearheaded by Naomi Osaka could make things interesting.

Last season, Victoria Azarenka and Sofia Kenin were the only former women’s champions in the draw at Melbourne Park, but there will be six when the 2024 edition kicks off as Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki and Angelique Kerber return.

The returning trio and Azarenka will be accompanied by their children as they look to match Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1977 and Kim Clijsters in 2011 by holding aloft the trophy as mothers.

Osaka, who

gave birth to daughter Shai last July,

will be in the spotlight despite more than a year on the sidelines.

The Japanese is the youngest of the returning champions and the 26-year-old showed at the Brisbane International – despite

a second-round exit

– that she still has the weapons that earned her the 2019 and 2021 Melbourne titles.

More importantly, she looked happy to be back in the game, even in defeat, and determined to build on a career which has already earned her four Slam titles.

“Super excited to be back. Just being able to hit on Rod Laver (Arena), look up at the sky and kind of just realise, like, I’ve been able to win twice here. I would love to do it again,” she said as she looked ahead to Melbourne Park.

Wozniacki and Kerber have both experienced triumphs at the Australian Open too, but admit they will be unable to focus purely on tennis as they return after long absences.

“It feels like you have two full-time jobs basically,” the 33-year-old Wozniacki, who won her only Slam here in 2018, said of juggling childcare with tennis.

“Finding that balance and being able to do both... Sometimes I pat myself on the back, saying you’re doing good. We’re getting through one day at a time and the kids are happy.”

The Dane retired in 2020, but made her comeback late in 2023 after giving birth to two children.

Kerber, who won the first of her three Slam titles in Melbourne in 2016, will be accompanied by her young daughter as she returns to action for the first time since the 2022 US Open.

“It is great to see mums coming back,” the 35-year-old German said. “I think it’s really interesting for the fans to see us playing again and how the comebacks will go.

“For us, it is a different mindset as we are not the important person right now in our lives, there is someone else.”

The bookmakers, however, clearly feel it is too early for the mothers to win, and strongly favour the players who have made a case to be considered a new “Big Four” of women’s tennis – Swiatek, Sabalenka, Rybakina and Gauff.

The sixth former champion in the draw is 2023 winner Sabalenka, who

claimed her first Slam by beating Rybakina.

The Belarusian reached at least the semi-finals at all four Majors last season and would have finished the year as world No. 1 but for

a loss to Swiatek at the WTA Finals.

Four-time Slam champion Swiatek has been past the fourth round only once in Melbourne, when she lost in the semi-finals in 2022, but proved she can win on hard courts with

her US Open triumph the same year.

Former Wimbledon champion Rybakina will be one to avoid as she

knocked out Swiatek in the fourth round in 2023.

The big-serving Kazakh made a statement in her own quiet way by routing Sabalenka 6-0, 6-3 in the final of the Brisbane warm-up tournament to move up to third in the rankings ahead of Gauff.

Gauff won her first Slam at the 2023 US Open and showed strong form to

retain her title in Auckland.

Another player returning to action after a lengthy absence is Emma Raducanu, but the 2021 US Open champion would consider it a triumph to get to the second week, after eight months out with wrist and ankle issues. REUTERS, AFP