Australian Open 2016: Doubts surround supreme Serena Williams

Four times a year before every slam, the discussion surrounding which woman will carry the trophy after two weeks is invariably reduced to two factors: Serena Williams and the rest of the field. If Serena is fit, if Serena has prepared well, if Serena projects enough motivation to the world before a slam, then the entire world of tennis unanimously stands by her side with no further questions asked. But if multiple boxes are left unticked in the final, then it's open season and the rest of the WTA is set for a riot.

As things stand just two days before the first slam of the year, it’s fair to say that the women’s side of the draw is provisionally pointing in the direction of the latter option. The last time the world number one’s feet touched the match court, her head was bowed as she skulked off the Arthur Ashe Stadium after suffering the greatest upset in the history of tennis.

Four months later, after pulling the plug on the rest of 2015 and diagnosing herself with a “broken heart”, Williams has prepared for her first slam of the year by becoming one of the first people in history to withdraw three times from the same tournament; first she withdrew from her opening match at the Hopman Cup exhibition with a knee inflammation, then she retired after losing the first set in the second match, before entirely withdrawing from the third.

This is not ideal. And neither are the early signs that the women’s tennis landscape behind her towering presence may be shifting again. Just a few days ago, Victoria Azarenka released a peculiar promotional video of herself. Aside from the random shots of her sitting on someone’s motorbike and spray-painting someone’s wall, the most interesting part was the quote from Williams which Azarenka chose to include.

"People sometime are like 'oh, will she come back?' well, of course she will,” said Serena in the video. “She's great - she's Victoria Azarenka - she can do anything that she wants to do.”

What Victoria Azarenka wants to do at this moment is return to the top and contend with Williams, and the early signals suggest she is capable of doing so. While the WTA tour has suffered a litany of injuries in the first two weeks of the year, Azarenka arrived in 2016 looking significantly leaner compared to the last few years that have been ruined by injuries and poor fitness. In her first tournament of the year - while projecting all the swagger that had been missing during that period - she violently terrorised a series of lower-ranked players before crushing her first test, seventh seed Angelique Kerber, in the blink of an eye in the final in Brisbane.

Now that Azarenka is leaner, readier, and has landed in a decent part of the draw, for once, all roads to the trophy do not seem to lead to Serena Williams. The betting markets firmly reflect this, with Williams holding only a microscopic lead over Azarenka after the Belarusian landed on the opposite side of her draw.

The mystery of whether Serena is fully prepared to defend her title only deepened on Saturday as photos of an apparently distressed Williams during practice did the rounds. She shrugged off the photos and asserted that she is “120%” ready, All the while, she masterfully pieced together an early, formidable contender for one of the most horrific press conferences of 2016 - cutting short questions, rolling her eyes to the skies above and perfectly projecting to every person in the room that she would have rather been anywhere else in the world than Melbourne.

But it’s very easy to conclude that none of this matters. One of the only consistent aspects of Williams’ last few seasons has been the presence of pressure as her greatest rival, rather than preparation issues or those people on the other side of the net. So supreme is her talent and her ability to triumph in difficult situations, even her actual level of tennis doesn’t always seem to be a significant roadblock to success as long as her head is screwed on.

This was true in 2014, when the pressure of equaling the coveted US record of 18 slams which both Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova shared almost left Williams without a slam for the entire year. Then, of course, last year she suffered under pressure that no human could survive on the final leg of her Grand Slam at home.

Between those defeats, she captured her second “Serena Slam” by finding direction in the surrounding doubt. In 2014, it was only when she practically wrote off the year as irreparably dire did she free herself enough to win the final slam. Meanwhile, she arrived in Australia in terrible form last year, she showed up injured at Roland Garros and almost lost to Britain’s Heather Watson in a series of brutal matches at Wimbledon, yet she strolled out of all three slams with the title.

So even if Williams isn’t in pristine condition, history asserts that the default position in these doubtful situations has to be to assume that she is still extremely likely to do what she usually does when she arrives under slightly less pressure at a slam she intends to win. After all, she's Serena Williams - she can do anything that she wants to do.