Stars set for January 2017

Players are forced to hit the ground running in 2017 ahead of the Australian Open.

With only two weeks of tournaments before the year’s first Grand Slam event, competitive opportunities are at a premium – and this means that tournament draws are stacked with talent.

No men’s or women’s field is deeper or stronger than the WTA event in Sydney, a tournament which has attracted six of the world’s top 10 and features a main-draw cut off ranking of 29 – the highest of any women’s draw in the past 12 months.

Headlining the list loaded with top 30 talent is world No.1 Angelique Kerber, defending champion and two-time major winner Svetlana Kuznetsova, and former champ and two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova. Players like Agnieszka Radwanska, Karolina Pliskova, Dominika Cibulkova and Caroline Wozniacki add talent and star power.

Typically, the Brisbane International has been the star-studded lead-in event for the women, a favourite stop for players such as Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka. Yet for various reasons, that superstar trio will be absent from Brisbane this year, and despite a field featuring five of the top 10, the tournament this year has been overshadowed somewhat by the concurrent tournament in Auckland.

The New Zealand showpiece has secured both Serena and Venus Williams plus another two former world No.1s in Wozniacki and Ana Ivanovic.

Yet the Brisbane tournament is the show-stopper on the men’s side. It’s where Rafael Nadal will make his comeback to tennis after cutting short his 2016 season, and he’ll be joined by other top 10 stars including US Open champ Stan Wawrinka, major finalists Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori, and rising star Dominic Thiem.

Another glittering men’s event is the ATP 250 stop in Doha, which has landed the world’s top two – Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic – plus big names like Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

While not as strong as the women’s field, the men’s tournament in Auckland will feature Juan Martin del Potro, who will kick off his 2017 season there after his Davis Cup heroics. A trio of talented Americans – John Isner, Jack Sock and Taylor Fritz – will be joined in the field by four-time winner and former top five stalwart David Ferrer.

Other tournaments in the lead up to the Australian Open included WTA events in Shenzhen – featuring top tenners Radwanska, Konta and Simona Halep – and Hobart, and ATP stops in Chennai and Sydney.

The legendary Roger Federer will not play an ATP event ahead of Australian Open 2017, instead opting for the ITF-sanctioned Hopman Cup, the long-running exhibition event in Perth.