Serena Williams: Why Underrated American Tennis Star Will Win Australian Open

Five-time Australian Open champion Serena Williams is still very much alive in 2012's tournament in Melbourne. The 30-year-old American is on a crash course with No. 4-ranked Russian Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinal round. 

If she can get past another Russian, Ekaterina Makarova, and eventually Sharapova, she will have new concerns in the remaining rounds, but nothing that she has not seen before as one of the greatest female tennis players in the history of the sport.

Before missing last year's tournament with a foot injury suffered in the summer of 2010 after stepping on broken glass, Williams had won the previous two Aussie Opens. She has won five of the last nine overall. 

Arguably the most dominant female tennis player of the past decade, Williams' experience in clutch situations and her sheer talent and power behind the racquet will make her the hands-down favorite the longer she survives in Melbourne.

There are no women on the hard court who can match or top her strength; her remaining opponents will instead have to run her into the ground and hope her aging legs fail her. Williams is an athlete through and through however, and she only gets better as the match wages on.

The success of players like Kim Clijsters at this year's tournament also proves that Williams could in fact be the woman to beat. Clijsters is 28 and nearing her last few years of dominance as well.

She has had several Grand Slam events to use to return to form, and she clearly has rediscovered her game this January. Williams has won six consecutive sets in three rounds at this year's Aussie Open, and that is the best measure of true form and dominance.

Williams has ways to go before she's back at the level we are accustomed to seeing her, but 2012's tournament is wide open, and there is no better competitor left to bet on than the re-emerging American.