For as much as the men like to believe the women's game is so different from theirs, the similarities far outweigh the differences. The men have a Big Three in Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The women have a Big One in Serena Williams. The men have a youth movement that in 2014 reshaped the rankings. Simona Halep, Dominika Cibulkova and Eugenie Bouchard all played in their first Grand Slam finals and year-end championships and 24-year-old Petra Kvitova won her second Wimbledon.
And as with the men, the women's season is bound to produce discovery and disappointment. Have your portfolio and cheat sheets ready. We're going prospecting.
BUY
Taylor Townsend, USA
2014 year-end ranking: 102
2013 year-end ranking: 308
2012 year-end ranking: 676
There is much to like about the 18-year-old Townsend. There is her stellar junior career in which she was the top-ranked junior in the world and her French Open junior doubles title with Bouchard. There is the way she competed against Serena Williams in last year's night match at the US Open in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
But mostly there is Townsend's eclectic game. She's a left-handed serve-and-volley player who can hit from the baseline and serve with deceptive power. With wonderful hands and feel, she is unlike most of the emerging prospects in that she is more polished tennis player than raw athlete, and her style of play is destined to give many players problems.
That she is ranked 102 means she may not yet be ready to reach the second week of a major this year, but here a "buy" rating will be justified by a couple of top-20 upsets or three, a nice run at a big tournament, and maybe cracking the top five of a crowded group of 12 American women in the top 100. At 102, she is the 13th-ranked American as of the start of the year. Cracking the top five would mean a huge leap down to the mid-30s. It is a lot to ask, but barring injury, her days of being ranked in the triple digits are over.
Victoria Azarenka, Belarus
2014 year-end ranking: 42
2013 year-end ranking: 2
2012 year-end ranking: 1
The upside of betting on Azarenka to be a threat again might seem as simple as her health, except that her injuries (including an ailing foot that kept her out five months in 2014) aren't the kind that end and the world returns to sun. Azarenka lost at the 2014 US Open to Ekaterina Makarova, lost to Ana Ivanovic in Tokyo, and then missed the rest of the year. Azarenka is the only player this side of Alize Cornet who seems to be a favorite, or at least on even ground, against Serena.
But ranked 42nd, Azarenka will enter Melbourne unseeded. Who wants to face a two-time Australian Open champion in an early round?
The main downside of Azarenka is that so far her injuries have seemed to leave her a bit less quick, a bit less mobile and fit, robbing her of those willpower points where she could outlast less-consistent opponents, and exposing her biggest weakness -- the inability to score free points on serve while giving away more thanks to huge numbers of double faults.
The second downside is that the competition in the top 10, where Azarenka wants to return, is really good. There are no paper tiger champions at the top of the game anymore. Every one of the top eight has played in a Grand Slam final, and four -- Serena, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova and Ana Ivanovic -- have won major titles.
Still, if Azarenka is still healthy and hungry, a quarterfinal or semifinal run at a major this year is certainly within reach.
Madison Keys, USA
2014 year-end ranking: 30
2013 year-end ranking: 37
2012 year-end ranking: 149
So many up-and-comers make a splash and get anointed as the Next Big Thing, only to be shot from the sky in a cruel crossfire of pressure, expectations and the obviousness of their own ability. I'm not even sure how good I've been at prognostication. I thought Julia Goerges would be a top-five player (best ranking: 15, March 2012), and two years ago I thought Kristina Mladenovic would soon be a top-20 player. (But hey, she's only 21.) Is Madison Keys any different?
She's the third-ranked American behind Serena (1) and Venus Williams (19), and if there is a difference between Keys and the rest, it's that she is one of the few women on tour who can control a match with her serve. She has a new coach in three-time major winner and Tennis Hall of Famer Lindsay Davenport, who can teach Keys how to impose her big game on opponents. She has the power to apply constant pressure through the unfailing tennis weapons of the serve and the forehand. If the consistency arrives in 2015, Serena may no longer feel so alone as the only American left during the second week of a Slam.
SELL
Sara Errani, Italy
2014 year-end ranking: 14
2013 year-end ranking: 7
2012 year-end ranking: 6
As much as I've resisted them, the comps to David Ferrer that cast Errani as the player on the women's tour who gets the most out of an underpowered body but who has finally run out of steam are, at last, accurate. The resisting stemmed from my belief that Ferrer was a better player than Errani, who (thanks to a powder-puff serve) hits at 84 percent accuracy but wins only 50 percent of her first-serve points. Also, I felt Ferrer had a better chance against the big boys on his side than Errani did against Sharapova (1-5), Serena (0-7), Kvitova (0-6) and Azarenka (1-7), even if the end result wound up being the same.
Errani and Roberta Vinci are still the best doubles pair in the world, but Errani has never seemed to recover from her finest moment. She admitted her unexpected, meteoric rise up the singles ladder (from 45th in 2011 to sixth in 2012) brought pressure to win that she could not handle. The improvement in her competition (Bouchard, Halep, a revived Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki) has made the top 10 a tougher place to be.
Errani went out in the first round at the Australian Open and Wimbledon. She reached the quarters at the French and US Open, but won a total of five games in those two quarterfinal matches, getting bombed by Andrea Petkovic in Paris and Wozniacki in Flushing. No great player gets overmatched in the second week more than Errani, but she is a great player, and it is a tribute that at 5-foot-4½, in a land of giants, she ever got there in the first place.
Samantha Stosur, Australia
2014 year-end ranking: 21
2013 year-end ranking: 18
2012 year-end ranking: 9
Years from now, when I'm reminiscing on this period, there will be many mysteries that will suddenly make sense, and I will have my illumination. Understanding Samantha Stosur will not be one of them. The former 2011 US Open champion serves with spin and power and can overpower most opponents. She's in incredible shape and is a dedicated professional, but we are simply confounded by her inability to have more success.
Stosur has always been a little shaky in the nerves department, evidenced by her shocking upset at the hands of 16-year-old Victoria Duval at the 2013 US Open. But in 2014, the bad losses just piled up and Stosur's ranking (top 10 from 2010-2012) finally took a big hit. Fifteen times Stosur went out in the first or second round of a tournament.
At the majors, Stosur's best was on clay, a three-set loss to Sharapova, in which the Aussie took the first set but got bageled in the third. She didn't beat Sharapova or Serena all year but did score top-10 wins over Wozniacki and Bouchard.
Stosur will be 31 in March, and despite the chiseled biceps and the deadly spin, the days of her being a second-week threat appear to be over.
Agnieszka Radwanska, Poland
2014 year-end ranking: 5
2013 year-end ranking: 5
2012 year-end ranking: 4
Martina Navratilova should never be bet against, and because she is Radwanska's new coach, suggesting a sell on one of the most consistent players on tour might be a grave mistake.
Here's the problem, though: Where else can Radwanska go? At No. 5, a buy means she can beat at least two of the four players (Serena, Sharapova, Halep, Kvitova) above her in a major, and that I'm not sure I believe. Radwanska is one of the game's great improvisational, artistic players. Like Gael Monfils, she is always a candidate for shot of the year. She has an innate feel for the game that is genius level.
But this is a power business, and by the end of the year her waifish frame is covered in physio tape while someone else is holding up the trophy. Worse for Radwanska is the gnawing fact that she did not capitalize on her two greatest chances to win a major. Those losses, to Sabine Lisicki in the 2013 Wimbledon semis and Cibulkova at the Melbourne semis, should have been matches Radwanska won.
Maybe Radwanska should be a hold, but as they say, if you're not moving forward, you're moving backward.
HOLD
Serena Williams, USA
2014 year-end ranking: 1
2013 year-end ranking: 1
2012 year-end ranking: 3
Some people's New Year's resolutions are to quit smoking or drinking, to exercise more, curse less or stop procrastinating. Mine is to stop picking Serena Williams to win every major. It's an understandable vice. Even now, every tournament she enters rests on her racket. She isn't just the best player in the world, but the best hard-court player, the best clay-court player, the best indoor player and the best grass-court player.
But she lost to Ivanovic in the quarters at Melbourne and was destroyed by Garbine Muguruza at the French. Serena then lost to Alize Cornet (who beat her three times in 2014) at Wimbledon before crushing Wozniacki to win her 18th major, in Flushing, and ease the pressure of catching Martina and Chrissie Evert for career majors (the three are tied for fourth all time at 18 apiece).
Now that the latest mountain has been climbed, will Serena go supernova and win three majors in 2015? I don't think so. She is always subject to injury, and in 2014 she had more odd bad days than in recent memory (for example, getting blasted by Halep 6-0, 6-2 in the WTA championships group stage only to beat her 6-3, 6-0 in the final).
So, when you're already the best, what is the difference between a hold and a buy? The hold is to acknowledge that her slippage isn't enough to shift the balance because she could win a major and have it considered a bad year, while respecting the fact that because she's Serena, she could still win the calendar Grand Slam, too.
Angelique Kerber, Germany
2014 year-end ranking: 9
2013 year-end ranking: 9
2012 year-end ranking: 5
If Sara Errani is the WTA equivalent of Ferrer, then Kerber is the WTA's Tomas Berdych, with all the tools to win a major but having never been to a final. Kerber is big left-handed power from the baseline and a threat every major, especially on grass and hard courts, to get to the second week, and she's consistent enough throughout the calendar year to go deep into tournaments and threaten for titles.
All of that sounds good, except for one thing: Kerber has won three career titles, and in 2014, she was the only top-10 player to not win a title. She didn't reach the quarters in a major in 2013, struggled on clay last year, and lost to Bouchard twice at majors, but beat Sharapova at Wimbledon.
So Kerber is a mixed bag, not quite a sell because she can beat anybody. Kerber has a decent top-10 record (4-5 vs. Radwanska, 0-2 vs. Halep, 2-4 vs. Sharapova, 5-4 vs. Wozniacki) and is always a Wimbledon threat, but not quite a buy because she hasn't finished the job and raised a trophy since Linz in 2013. Ranked ninth, Kerber is on the outside looking in at the WTA championships.
Venus Williams, USA
2014 year-end ranking: 19
2013 year-end ranking: 49
2012 year-end ranking: 24
Just when the documentaries were being cut and the professional eulogies were laced with laments about Sjogren's syndrome and how the women's game will miss her grace, Venus Williams, a seven-time major champion, has shown a resurgence and happens to be a top-20 player again -- the second-ranked American behind her top-ranked sister.
Venus played in four finals in 2014, winning Dubai by beating Cornet in the final and defeating Wozniacki, Flavia Pennetta and Ivanovic en route. Venus beat Serena in a thrilling match in Montreal before losing to Radwanska in the final, and lost a stirring three-set second-round match of champions to Kvitova at Wimbledon, all proof that Venus is again competitive and not to be underestimated, especially on fast surfaces.
Venus will be 35 in June, her physical ailments well-documented. She hasn't reached the quarters of a major since the 2010 US Open. Nevertheless, there is no better fighter in the game, and when her retirement appeared imminent after a first-round loss at Wimbledon in 2012 and her withdrawal in 2013, Williams made a surprise comeback. The Americans boast 12 women in the top 100, yet it is the Williams sisters who still lead the United States. That's worth holding on to for as long as it lasts.