By Chris Davies
January 8 2005

With the Australian Open just a week away and the Medibank International full of the leading contenders for the Grand Slam crown we analyse the draw in Sydney and predict who will win the Medibank Internationl, Sydney World number 1 Lindsay Davenport returns after a successful year last year but is still a little bit surprised that she did not capture a major but now could be the time. The American who has a pretty straightforward draw may face her biggest test against Elena Dementieva in the sem-final with only Dechy, Kostanic and Sugiyama before hand to dispose of.

Uncle Toby's winner Patty Schnyder opens to Karolina Sprem which should be an interesting clash with the winner strongly facing Magdalena Maleeva who faces an Australian wildcard.

The Australian's will have something to look forward to this year has Alicia Molik plays Francessca Schiavone which will not be a straight forward match-up but should come through pretty comfortably.

Vera Zvonareva, Nadia Petrova and Anastasia Myskina will stand in her way to get through to the final. Zvonareva and Myskina have first round byes where has Petrova plays a qualifier.