The Brisbane International tournament is back and this is the first big tournament of the year and it is one of the best warm ups for players heading into the Australian Open and Maria Sharapova made her return from injury and Serena Williams heads into the year after an amazing run last season that saw her win a number of slams and awards and she was named AP women's Athlete of the Year and she is coming off of a US Open victory, as is Rafael Nadal and he will be one player to watch in Australia after he missed the tournament last year with his injury.
Sharapova looked very sharp in her first action back since getting injured and she won over Caroline Garcia in straight sets with a 6-3, 6-0 victory and now she looks like she will be trying to get on a roll heading into the Australian Open and could be a favorite for the tournament if she continues to play like she did in the fourth round. Williams will again be the favorite coming into the grand slam and Sharapova next will play against Ashleigh Barty and that should be an easy win, but the youngster showed some skills in taking down former tournament winner Daniela Hantuchova, who won it back in 2012 and now Sharapova will try to advance after that match. Rafael Nadal comes into the year after having an impressive 2013 and Roger Federer will be looking to get back into the swing of things after not winning a major last year.
Check here for the Brisbane International live coverage.
The women's draw in the tournament is very stacked for this year and has Jelena Jankovic, going through to the next round after she won over Francesca Schiavone in a two set tiebreaker and Angelique Kerber ended up through and so did Carla Suarez and on the men's side Grigor Dimitrov advanced and that was big for him and now the focus comes onto Roger Federer.
This year Federer will be looking to get back on track against Nadal and Novak Djokovic and he comes in with 17 majors this year and now he will be bringing on Stefan Edberg to his team to get into gear for the grand slam and it follows what other top players have been doing, as Andy Murray hired Ivan Lendl and had great grand slam success and Djokovic has been working with Boris Becker and that turned some heads and some of the other players that moved along included Sam Querrey in an upset, while Marin Cilic also won and in the Hopman Cup, the Americans played well with Sloane Stephens and John Isner advancing and now she comes in looking to play well after getting into the semis with a win against Serena Williams.
