For those who follow Moo’s Tennis Blog regularly, you will know I like to post predictions every week for all the tournaments.  In this new feature, I take a look back at my WTA predictions from 2013.

Note – This analysis focuses on pre-tournament predictions where I predict how a draw will pan out before the first match has played.

Here are some of the highlights from my WTA predictions in 2013:

• In all my drawsheets, I averaged 57% correct picks, 4 correct quarter-finalists and predicted 12 (34%) champions out of the 35 tournaments.
• I started the year in pretty terrible form with just one winner (Radwanska in Auckland)  through the first three months.  I picked up through the Spring though correctly predicting 6 champions in 9 tournaments between Miami and Roland Garros.
• A strange stat – I correctly predicted all three Serena v Sharapova finals in 2013 in Miami, Madrid and Roland Garros.  Serena won 11 titles this year and I backed her in 7 of those tournaments.
• For the Grand Slams, I had a poor year.  The French Open was the only one where I correctly predicted the champion and with 75% correct picks, it was way ahead of the Australian Open (71%), US Open (61%) and Wimbledon (54%).  This is quite surprising because Roland Garros is normally one of my worst tournaments.  There are normally a lot of shocks, but this year went much with the form book.
• In terms of correct picks, Hobart was my best tournament with a 77% success rate of picking matches and 6 correctly predicted quarter-finalists.  Away from the Grand Slams, my best finish to a tournament was Cincinnati where I correctly called that Victoria Azarenka would beat Serena Williams in the final.  For Estoril and Osaka, I got the two finalists correct, but on both occasions I went for the wrong champion.
• The grass court season was an absolute bloodbath.  I didn’t predict any finalists and only scored 1 of the 8 quarter-finalists correct at both Birmingham and Eastbourne.  Wimbledon was littered with shocks and unsurprisingly, I didn’t call many of them!

Overall, it was an average year for WTA predictions.  There is definitely room for improvement in 2014.  This year’s predictions did highlight that predicting Grand Slams and Premier events has become more straightforward for the WTA with greater stability at the top of the game, but International events remain incredibly unpredictable!

Coming Soon: ATP Predictions review