The women’s singles matches at the Australian Open 2025 will also begin this week with Aryna Sabalenka, Linda Noskova and Bernarda Pera among those in action for their openers. Here’s the preview, predictions and tips for these matches from Melbourne.
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Aryna Sabalenka v Sloane Stephens Preview
Head-to-Head: There have been four previous meetings between these two players and Sabalenka has won them all. Interestingly, in three of them, Stephens has managed to take her opponent to the third set including the 2021 Canadian Open and 2022 San Diego Open.
Aryna Sabalenka is a two-time defending champion here at the Australian Open and the manner in which she kick-started the season in 2025, it looks like it would take a lot for someone to stop her making it three in a row.
Featuring in the Brisbane International in the opening week of the season, Sabalenka dropped just one set on her way to the title. Even that came in the final against the surprise entrant Polina Kudermetova but once she had gotten used to her opponent, she unleased her own brand of power that ended the Russian’s stay.
Earlier in the tournament, Sabalenka had eased past Renata Zarazua, Yulia Putintseva, Marie Bouzkova and Mirra Andreeva with consummate ease.
And with Sloane Stephens having played two first round matches so far this year and lost in both, it seems highly unlikely she would be able to turn that around quickly enough against the world number one.
Sabalenka v Stephens prediction: Sabalenka to win in straight sets: 2/11
Jessica Bouzas Maneiro v Sonay Kartal Preview
Head-to-Head: This will be the first meeting between Bouzas Maneiro and Kartal.
Bouzas Maneiro is currently ranked 52nd in the world, her career-best ranking. What that has done is given her direct entry into the Australian Open for the first time in her career, having featured in the qualifiers of this competition in the past two years and failed to proceed beyond.
So what changed for Bouzas Maneiro between the last edition and this one of this competition?
Well, for starters she won two ITF and one WTA 125 title in 2024 and she managed to make it to the third round at both, Wimbledon and US Open. She had also wrapped up the season with a quarterfinal appearance at Guangzhou.
Facing her is Britain’s Sonay Kartal who clinched a career-first title in Monastir last year. It was also a season in which she won six other ITF titles, all of which came in hardcourt competitions.
What that meant is that while Kartal had started off ranked at 248th in the world in 2024, she has also broken into the top 100 now.
This could be a tough battle with neither player really a big favourite but Kartal’s performances in hardcourt competitions give her our edge here.
Bouzas Maneiro v Kartal prediction: Kartal to win: 4/5
Bernarda Pera v Tatjana Maria Preview
Head-to-Head: There have been two previous meetings with both having won one apiece – Maria on the grass courts of Nottingham in 2019 and Pera on the clay courts of Madrid in 2023.
A first round casualty at the Australian Open last season, Bernarda Pera will like to change that around and she has a decent chance of doing that given she is up against a player who has herself not had a great time in this competition.
Having featured in this tournament since 2007, Tatjana Maria has made the second round here on just three previous occasions while not even qualifying for it four times. Maria has never entered round three.
Pera, on the other hand, has done that twice already and kick-started the season with two solid wins at the Auckland Open.
Unfortunately for Pera those were followed by two successive defeats to Robin Montgomery and Anna Blinkova in successive tournaments, which has been the story of her career. Still she will have her nose in front in this one.
Pera v Maria prediction: Pera to win: 1/2
Linda Noskova v Clara Tauson Preview
Head-to-Head: Noskova and Tauson have never faced off in a competitive match before this.
While these two players haven’t played each other before, it could have all the makings of an exciting first round encounter.
For one, Linda Noskova is ranked 30th in the world and facing up to the 41st-ranked Clara Tauson, not much of a difference in the rankings for a first round match.
The other aspect to look here is that while Noskova has shown the kind of quality she possesses in hardcourt competitions, having won the Monterrey Open last year, Tauson’s made a brilliant start to the season.
She featured in Auckland last week and defeated Sofia Kenin and Madison Keys on her way to the final. In the title-decider against Naomi Osaka, she was a set down before her opponent retired from the match.
The tournament win, third in a hardcourt competition, and the first since 2021, should give her a lot of confidence coming into this one. Noskova, on the other hand, is 1-2 this year.
Given the obvious difference in their form, we can back Tauson to edge forward here.
Noskova v Tauson prediction: Tauson to win: 19/20
Other Australian Open 2025 Predictions of the Day
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