WTA Stanford 2011 Quick Preview

You can watch Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova playing at the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford starting on July 25th.

Williams adds an intriguing air of unpredictability to the action in Stanford this week as no one quite knows what vein of form she will show up in. Given she had not competed on the tour in almost a year, her run to the fourth round at Wimbledon was impressive and with several weeks more training under her belt she will only be better. However in recent years Serena has struggled to raise her game for the events outside of the slams and she has not won one of the US Open Series events since 2001. Sharapova will be one of the main title contenders this week. The Russian will have had mixed feelings after Wimbledon. Undoubtedly her run to the final will have been a confidence boost after her struggles over the past three years but she went into that match against Petra Kvitova as favourite and as well as Kvitova played that day, Sharapova is a champion and it will feel like a missed opportunity.

She has the chance to get back into winning ways this week. She made the final last year but was outplayed by Victoria Azarenka. The Belarussian has risen to number four in the world after her best ever Grand Slam performance took her to the last four at Wimbledon. Azarenka has drawn quite a bit of a criticism as she regularly mops up at events like Stanford but she has never delivered to her potential at a major.

Other in-form players include Marion Bartoli who knocked out Serena in straight sets at Wimbledon. Bartoli has put vast amounts of work into her movement over the past year and the Frenchwoman is now a much more rounded player and does not need to rely quite so heavily on her ferocious first strike.

Wimbledon semi-finalist Sabine Lisicki is also a rapidly improving player, one of a trio of young Germans closing in on the top of the women's rankings. Julia Goerges is also in action this week.