Nadal and Clijsters are the respective favorites for the men's and women's singles draws for Melbourne.
Rafael Nadal and Kim Clijsters are the top picks to win the men's and women's singles tournaments at the 2011 Australian Open, a Grand Slam tournament that starts on January 17th. In the case of Nadal, he has won in Melbourne before as the Spaniard beat Roger Federer in the 2009 final match.
In the case of Clijsters, she has never won the event before however she, like Nadal, is the reigning US Open singles champion.
With the start of the tournament less than 1 month away there is reason to be skeptical of both players.
If you had to decide between Federer and Nadal at this point you might have to go with Federer based on the fact that he beat Nadal in the ATP World Tour Finals. With Clijsters, you can't be too impressed with her third round loss from a year ago at Melbourne Park to Nadia Petrova.
However Nadal is more than 4 years younger than Federer and should they meet in the final at Melbourne Park it would likely be Nadal who would possess the edge in terms of relative fatigue.
Clijsters' chief rival has be Caroline Wozniacki but the Dane has not won a Slam yet and Clijsters is 2-0 against the current world number 1 and both matches were huge matches (2009 US Open final, 2010 WTA World Championships).
Clijsters should beat Wozniacki heads up but of the two, Clijsters is more likely to suffer an upset at this point.
The Slam starts at January 17th and continues until January 30th with smaller ATP and WTA events taking place earlier in the New Year.
