Australian Open - the first Grand Slam of 2013 | 14-27 January

The 101st edition of the Australian Open and the first Grand Slam of the year 2013 gets underway in Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia from Monday 14 January with the first round of matches and will terminate with the final of the men's singlets on January 2013.

The men's singles is always the centre of attraction of the event. But this year, Nadal's absence will be greatly felt as he has still not recovered from his knee injury, for which he missed major events in 2012. It was expected that he would figure out in Doha, the last tennis tournament of the year, but retracted at the last moments. Likewise he also excused himself from the Australian Open just days ago. This thus leave the top three in the arena.

As for the big three, the defending champion Serbian Novak Djokovic with three Australian Open titles would definitely want to commence his tennis year by defending his title.

But he is threatened this year more by Andy Murray of Britain than Roger Federer. Murray won two major titles last year: the Olympic gold and the US Open. And he is concentrating to start his Grand Slam quest right from Australian Open this year - some even think that he can do it.

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As for Federer, the 17 Grand Slam holder, is 31 years now and age does tell on the tennis courts. Though, Federer has not shown any signs of aging so far, but he is now playing selectively to conserve himself in the longer run rather than wearing him out by playing each and every tournament.

“I intend to spend more time in Switzerland and I am going to practice more, rather than play in all the tournaments, because I am preparing for the longevity aspect. I would like to play for as long as I can. I just don’t want to fizzle out. That’s not the goal here."

As for the ladies, Serena Williams, although aged like Federer, has shown no signs of aging. In fact last year she played far better than world numbers 1 and 2. The five-time Serena Williams is very likely to be the centre of attraction this year as she was last year and likely to move up leaving behind Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka - in her quest for the 'Serena Slam' of holding all four major titles at once.

The Australian Open, basically a clay court event, will played on three main arenas: The Rod Laver arena, the Hense Arena and the Margaret Court Arena, beside almost two dozens courts for low ranking players.

On the Day-1, the first round of matches will see Maria Sharapova, Samantha Stosur, Ana Ivanovic, Venus Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska and Na Li figuring out in the women singles event. While in the men's singles category, Djokovic, Janko Tipsarevic, David Ferrer and Tomas Berdych will be the main players.

Keep referring to the Movin' Sports for links for free live streaming of some of the important matches as the competition progresses till its culmination on 27 January.

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