Preview Women's Brisbane International 2025: Aryna Sabalenka, Emma Navarro, Paula Badosa and Mirra Andreeva open new season

Just as it felt like the 2024 season concluded, it begins again in 2025 with the Brisbane International bookending the new year. It is due to take place between December 29 - January 5 and is a WTA 500 headlined by Aryna Sabalenka. Our preview looks ahead to the tournament and the leading talking points.

Sabalenka heads into the new season as the imperious queen of tennis for the first time. She has previously lost the World No.1 going into the new year but is well ahead of a certain Iga Swiatek and the chasing pack.

She will be looking for a hat-trick of Australian Open titles and will be favourite to do so. All smiles last week at the World Tennis League and having spent some much needed time off, Sabalenka will now deal with the pressure again of being the hunted over the hunter.

An experience she only had for a few months during her last stint. Albeit the player who has won Brisbane has never won the Australian Open. Elena Rybakina was a leading proponent of that and in reality went backwards after her incredible run to the title 12 months ago. Albeit she has dealt with other issues that aren’t linked to the curse of winning this title.

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From the hunter to hunted, Sabalenka starts season

Sabalenka will look to break the mould. She looked superb last season at this event before she was easily beaten. Albeit most of her rivals in Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina are all in United Cup action over this tournament and have made that decision this season.

Rybakina perhaps is the only surprise. Gauff ordinarily plays ASB Classic if she plays anything before the Australian Open, while Swiatek often plays United Cup with a well versed tandem with Hubert Hurkacz. But it perhaps opens the path for either shocks or a dominant win.

Her nearest rival in reality will be Emma Navarro. The American has also got to get used to a new status. She went from grinding WTA 125k and ITF tournaments to rising up the ranks the hard way despite similar headlines about her solely being about the wealth of her father, Ben Navarro who runs the Charleston Open and owns CreditOne.

She reached the semi-finals of the US Open but perhaps also has a point to prove. She won Hobart last year but also then fell apart when it came to qualifying for the WTA Finals. She then snubbed alternate status due to injury and ended her season as soon as Zheng Qinwen took her spot.

New found status and new found expectations for Emma Navarro.

Despite Qinwen not playing in the early weeks, she ended 2024 out of the last pair qualifying for the tournament with the most credit and it is now up to Navarro to go again. She won The Garden Cup exhibition in recent weeks and her Instagram shows a player hard at work as well as enjoying Christmas back home with the pastry run.

Navarro was only top seed though as Jessica Pegula decided to withdraw due to injury. She has been carrying an issue since the WTA Finals and albeit played that exhibition won by Navarro losing out to her compatriot, she was an unfortunate miss given how her season also started in 2024 dogged by injury.

Navarro opens up against Kimberly Birrell while Sabalenka faces Viktoriya Tomova or Renata Zarazua. The third seed is Daria Kasatkina who won in Ningbo to end the year in an interesting scene as she beat close friend Mirra Andreeva (also in Brisbane) but the tears of the 17-year-old caught more headlines. But she is a player carving out consistent form again and is perhaps one of the best to follow on tour for her vlog channel.

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Badosa, Kalinskaya, Andreeva and Shnaider other highlights

Others involved include Paula Badosa who was rightfully the comeback player of the year on the tour and had one of the most impressive returns in recent years on the WTA Tour. Her being fourth seed in this stacked tournament proves that. Nearly ending her career due to back issues and having to have injections to save it, she has ascended back to her best and is perhaps a title success away from being Indian Wells winning Badosa again.

Diana Shnaider and Mirra Andreeva will be a doubles tandem to watch in 2025 and both play singles over the next week. Shnaider ended the year winning Hong Kong and won a myriad of titles last season as like her compatriot and friend, she heads towards the top 10 likely in the goodness of time.

Both are heavily seen as the future challengers to the crowns of Sabalenka and Swiatek and will aim to make a step towards that in 2025. Andreeva like her doubles teammate like alluded to ended the season with success reaching the final in Ningbo but perhaps showed the fragility she still has.

She will turn 18 in 2025 after emerging as a 16-year-old two years ago so her picking and choosing will cease also when that happens around Madrid time. Something which has blighted her as she cannot play everything. But she will play in Brisbane.

Dominating headlines for Sinnerskaya, Anna Kalinskaya will hope to divert from romance chatter.

Anna Kalinskaya is a player albeit older than her compatriots who also had a supremely successful year on the tour. She reached the latter stages of the Australian Open and the final in Dubai in particular early season as well as performing well on grass.

Injuries and illness continue to be in the rear mirror which blighted the 26-year-old in her early years on the WTA Tour in achieving her potential. But now she will look to push on and amid most of the stories involving her being about her boyfriend and World No.1, Jannik Sinner on the ATP Tour will look to do similar to Katie Boulter for instance and make it about the tennis instead of her love life.

But amid quiet holidays away from glaring eyes with Sinner, she will be ready and refreshed and likely taking the lessons that 2024 gave her both on the court and off it.

Victoria Azarenka, Jelena Ostapenko and Marta Kostyuk also bookend an entertaining field going into the first week of the new season. Buckle up as 2025 promises to be one of the best yet and it all starts in Brisbane.

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