The same group of three columnists who discussed the ATP last Thursday is back around the table, this time to talk about the ladies and how the young guns, established veterans, and everyone in between will fare in 2014.

Nicholas Nemeroff: I know you guys are the WTA experts, but I think I have a solid question to get us started:  does Serena Williams need 2014 or the rest of her career for that matter to cement her status as the greatest female player? Or do we not think she is already the greatest at this point?

Victoria Chiesa: I've never really been a fan of this whole “GOAT” thing in general on either tour. I really don't think it makes sense to compare Margaret Court to Martina Navratilova to Steffi Graf to Serena. However, I understand that it's always going to be a conversation as long as Serena keeps winning. For me, I think numbers are important for everyone to consider; they're free of personal biases. Hands down, Serena is the greatest of her generation. If she managed to pass Graf and Court in the singles major title count, then it would be easier to qualify her as the “greatest” objectively.

David Kane: Arguably the best of two generations, what with her longevity. Hers is a talent you simply cannot teach. Compound that with desire and willingness to adapt to an ever-changing sport and you have, well, one of the greatest players of all time. Gone are the days when one can question that. A fairer question remains: just *how* much greater can she be? Suddenly, those years spent away from the game in the mid-00s don’t seem like the hindrance to her legacy that they once were. Inching into her 30s, she seems as fit and motivated as ever. Despite a week in Istanbul that was truly head-scratching at times, a refreshed Serena has always been at her most dangerous in Australia. Barring a repeat of the series of unfortunate events that befell her last year, she seems ripe to reclaim her best major, which has been kept lovingly in the interim by world No. 2 Victoria Azarenka.

NN: I agree that numbers are an essential component of this conversation. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, but it’s difficult for me to see anyone beating Serena at her best. That’s why I don’t have much hesitation in putting the numbers aside for Serena.

VC: Very good points. The desire to compare Serena's achievements with legends of past eras shouldn't stop people from appreciating what she has done and still continues to do. With the jury still out as to where Serena is going to end up in the long term, how do you see her 2014 playing out? A lot of people have said, perhaps rightly so, that she's her own biggest obstacle to a calendar-year Grand Slam. Having lost just four matches in 2013, will the field make any kind of inroads against her next year?

DK: The old adage went, “Never bet against a Williams sister,” but even at her winningest, the tennis gods seemed determined to keep a more official “Serena Slam” from her grasp. The good news is that she stumbled last year in Australia and Wimbledon, her two best majors. Should she continue to hold sway on the red dirt, out Claypova-ing even Maria Sharapova in the process, a calendar Slam is not out of the question. But even at its most ATP-esque, the WTA is still full of hungry competitors who have twice the belief (even if half the ranking points) of a David Ferrer. Serena didn’t fail to take all four major titles because of her rivals at the top, but because of giant-killers like Sloane Stephens and Sabine Lisicki, two players among many others who enjoy bringing their best to the biggest tournaments. I would still sooner bet on a calendar Slam coming in the ATP than the WTA.

NN: I don’t think the field will make any inroads against Serena. The only opponent that I think Serena will be worrying about moving into 2014 is Azarenka, who won two of their four meetings in 2013. What I think Azarenka has going in her favor, despite her 3-13 record against Williams, is her ability to hang with Serena when Serena is at a high level, something few can do. Four of their last six matches have gone three sets, and Azarenka has held her ground pretty well. Hopefully she’ll be able to recover from her abysmal post-US Open run during which she lost four of her last five matches, including a loss to the Williams sister she should be beating, Venus. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Serena wins all four majors this year. It’s obviously the hardest task in tennis, but I wouldn’t put anything past her.

DK: After their meeting in Cincinnati, Serena sardonically quipped, “I think I bring out the best in her” when asked about her rivalry with Azarenka. The two get along off the court, but the more Azarenka gets the best of her in the smaller tournaments, the less confidence I have that she’ll be able to replicate it at the majors. This post-embolism Serena is certainly more prone to second-set lapses in major finals, but her other losses suggest that she is still at her most vulnerable before the penultimate rounds of majors. This is not to say that an Azarenka win over Serena is impossible at a major, but Azarenka would have to come out of the gates playing much better than she has in their last two major encounters. And if Serena’s sudden fatigue in Istanbul was surprising, there was also Azarenka’s admitting to having motivation issues at a tournament with a substantial prize purse. Is the Belarussian on borrowed time?

VC: If I'm Azarenka (which I'm not) or her camp, I'd no doubt be concerned with what transpired for her following the US Open. Actually, following her injury at Wimbledon. Sure, she beat Serena to win Cincinnati and made her second US Open final, but she got through those tournaments mostly on nerve. Her level of play fluctuated between abysmal and mediocre following Wimbledon. Her style of play requires intensity from start to finish. If she's lacking any sort of motivation, it becomes infinitely harder for her to reach the level she needs to be at to do justice to that world No. 2 ranking.

DK: Oh, where is the real No. 2? If not Azarenka, what about Sharapova, who pulled a Murray-style Houdini act for most of 2013. Only without the Wimbledon title and twice the Sugarpova puns. How is the bionic shoulder, and what can we expect from a player who was nails for most of the first half of last year?

NN: The last time Sharapova was seen on a tennis court playing a meaningful match she was being coached by Jimmy Connors and collapsing in a match she should have won against Sloane Stephens. With all the talk of Sugarpova and what Sharapova will be wearing on court in 2014, I’m interested to see how she plays in the upcoming year. If I were her, or almost any other top player on the WTA for that matter, I would be feeling deflated. The fact remains that if you want to win a major these days, you’re going to have go through Serena Williams. Although that wasn’t the case in Australia and Wimbledon, I expect all roads to run through Williams in 2014. Sharapova hasn’t beaten Serena since 2004, and while she is quite the fighter, this will have to change if she wants to win more majors.

VC: There are so many question marks surrounding Sharapova that it's almost impossible to speculate what version of the Russian we're going to see in 2014. Will we see the ruthless Maria who's made consistency her hallmark since returning to the top of the WTA rankings? Or will we see the erratic 2009-era Maria who was unable to put two balls (or serves) in the court in a row?

DK: Against Serena, the latter will likely show up regardless of how she plays against others. To be fair, 2013 could have been remembered as the year where Maria Sharapova finally struck back in her non-rivalry against Williams, getting within a handful of games of the Indian Wells/Miami double and shaking a decade-long curse against the American, who has owned the Russian since early 2005. Sharapova sounds confident that all is well with the shoulder heading into 2014, but she will face early tests and old demons from the get-go. A confident and aggressive Sharapova is who I believe to be the second-best player in the world, but she has to do a lot in a short amount of time to make that assertion from the beginning of the new season.

VC: With Williams, Azarenka and Sharapova so firmly entrenched in the top three, where does that leave the WTA's supporting cast? The odds are that Agnieszka Radwanska isn't going to get as golden of an opportunity to hoist a major trophy as she did at Wimbledon 2013, so where does she go now? Do Li Na and Petra Kvitova have what it takes to win another major?

NN: Isn’t Li third?

DK: Technically, yes. Hypothetically, no.

VC: Ew, math.

DK: Li Na had a Djokovician season, looking her best at opposite ends of 2013 with a solid run to the Wimbledon quarterfinals to boot. Similar to Serena, she took all she could at the Australian Open, turning an ankle and bumping her head en route to a three-set loss to Azarenka in the final. I always find Li Na asking more questions than she answers. While she appears on the ascent again after her post-major title lull, I question how much she can continue to improve. With her regained confidence and a solid draw, impossible is nothing (wrong sponsor), but whether that says anything new about her as opposed to the field remains to be seen.

As for Kvitova, she still has a way to go before she can convince me that she is back to that unbeatable form we saw in 2011. A concentrated effort towards her health and fitness (emphasis on the former) would take the Czech greeting-card connoisseur a long way.

Radwanska’s consistency guarantees her presence in the latter rounds of majors, giving her the opportunity to earn her luck in the way Marion Bartoli seemed to do at last year’s Wimbledon, the site of the Pole’s crushing loss to Lisicki. Talk about a young woman in need of a pep talk; with so much talent, flair and precision, she could use a little swagger. With a win over Sharapova in the 2012 Miami final, it is not as if Radwanska needs an imploded draw to win a big title. The sooner she realizes that, the better.

NN: Despite Li Na and Petra Kvitova not having won a second major following their inaugural triumphs, I think the fact that they both have won majors and have the offensive weapons to take on the game’s elite will help them in their quest to add to those maiden victories. As far as Kvitova is concerned, she really needs to reduce the three-setters. If she continues to immerse herself in drawn-out matches, she’ll leave herself in a vulnerable spot physically and mentally. That will hurt her during the later rounds of majors, where she needs to maximize the amount of physical and mental reserves she has available. As David aptly noted, fitness will be huge for Kvitova.

Li Na has one of the most technically sound and aesthetically pleasing games out there, which should help her as she attempts to execute her penetrating and powerful groundstrokes for the course of a fortnight. Someone less technically sound would be much less likely to be able to produce powerfully consistent strokes over the course of seven matches.

VC: Here I was thinking that Kvitova's only upper respiratory issue was asthma, but she clearly has an allergy to two-setters as well. She played 37(!) three-set matches in 2013, far and away the most on the WTA. THIRTY. SEVEN. On the bright side, she managed to win 23 of them, which at least shows that she managed to find her way through the troughs more often that not over the past 12 months. Kvitova has a problem that 99% of the players on the WTA would kill to have. She's carved out a pretty decent career for herself despite not (yet) tapping into her full potential. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if Kvitova had the work ethic Azarenka displayed in 2012. Or, conversely, if Azarenka had Kvitova's natural talent. Alternate realities are weird.

As far as Li Na goes, it might seem obvious, but she's not getting any younger. I'll eat my words, as I thought the partnership with Carlos Rodriguez would be a colossal failure. It's been anything but. However, I don't think she has the desire that Serena has to be playing well into her 30s, so it's safe to say she doesn't have that many years left.

DK: You weren’t the only one. I was sure Carlos would call her “Justine” by accident and the whole partnership would collapse.

Rounding out the WTA spectrum are the Tour’s up-and-comers. The ATP may have a dearth of young guns, but a tremendous number of young women came of age in 2013, winning titles and making deep runs at the majors. Leading the pack in titles won was Simona Halep, the oldest of the group but still quite young at 22 years old. In what was a year for youth, former junior prodigies like Sloane Stephens, Eugenie Bouchard, Laura Robson, Madison Keys, Camila Giorgi, Annika Beck and Yulia Putintseva all made waves in 2013. Who is most likely to carry that momentum through to 2014?

VC: Halep has a pittance to defend prior to Rome in 2014, so, if she stays healthy, the top 10 is pretty much a lock for her. Considering she was seeded for the first time at a major at the US Open, I’m eager to see how she performs now that she will be drawing players she’s expected to beat. A knock against Halep’s breakthrough year was her performance in majors, and a breakthrough is only a breakthrough if it’s a harbinger of things to come. Aside from Halep, I’d like to at least see some of these other younger players…you know, make a WTA final. Robson did so in 2012, while Beck and Bouchard let their inexperience show in finals against Wozniacki and Stosur, respectively. The others? Not so much. While players like Stephens and Robson have had their names in lights at majors, they haven’t put it together in WTA events. You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run.

We are forgetting the one youngster who also won a title in 2013: Elina Svitolina. The Ukrainian won her first WTA title in Baku and also upset Dominika Cibulkova in front of my very eyes on Court 6 at the US Open. But she has a lot to improve if she wants to make any legitimate inroads on the tour.

NN: I think it’s great to see the surge in young talent on the WTA Tour. From Robson to Bouchard to Stephens to Halep, the future is bright. Of those, Halep and Stephens have the highest ranking, and of those two I would put my money on Halep having greater success in the future. Both can pack a punch from the baseline, but in terms of being able to handle the punches of their contemporaries, I would give the edge to Halep. Her strokes are simpler and more compact than Stephens’. In addition, I would give Halep the edge on movement and defense. It’ll be interesting to see if Stephens will continue her partnership with Roger Federer’s former coach, Paul Annacone, and what dimensions he can add to her game.  

VC: Final thoughts on the ladies of the WTA? Despite the overwhelming indications that 2014 will be another #yearofserena, I’m excited by a lot of the secondary storylines on the WTA. There are a lot of great personalities on tour and I think a lot of them will be front and center next season. There’s a great balance of in-form veterans and young players looking to take the next step.

Speaking of taking the next step, I’ve got a gut feeling that Caroline Wozniacki’s separation from her father Piotr is for real this time. She and her new coach Thomas Hogtstedt have known each other for a while, and I think she respects what he says. That might not have been the case with some of her previous coaching experiments…well, really just Ricardo Sanchez. Nonetheless, Piotr is reportedly accompanying Caroline to Australia, so my gut feeling could also be totally wrong.

DK: Speaking of gut, word on the street is that Wozniacki has switched back to Babolat racquets. Racquet choice is rarely credited to success or failure, but all you need to know is this: Wozniacki made one major final playing with Babolat, and none upon switching to Yonex.

As much as 2013 was about the youngsters, my heart went out to some of our embattled veterans more than once and I worry about how they’ll fare in 2014. From Francesca Schiavone to Venus Williams to Svetlana Kuznetsova, the old guard had some flashy moments but nothing close to their former brilliance. It will be interesting to see who calls it quits as we inch closer to endgame, or the 2016 Olympics. As the ATP looks to embrace the wonk in 2014, the WTA is as stable as it’s ever been in the last decade, but what would the women’s game be without a healthy dose of shock and awe?

NN: Wozniacki is almost a lost cause for me. Unless she changes her mentality and becomes more aggressive on her forehand and serve, I don’t see any upward movement in the rankings for the former world No. 1. To this day, I’m still amazed that Wozniacki was able to obtain so much success considering her limited offensive weapons. And yes, would love to see another Bartoli type run happen in 2014. Would certainly bet against it, but you never know!

VC: So what you’re telling is me is Mandy Minella wins Roland Garros?

DK: And scene.