If only women’s tennis could delay the Australian Open another month or two.

Fresh off a season plagued by injuries, the tour’s women hobble into the first Grand Slam of 2005. Former world no. 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne, finally over the virus that sidelined her most of last year, has injured her knee and will miss four to six weeks. Countrywoman Kim Clijsters can’t shake a left-wrist injury that negated her 2004 season. Jennifer Capriati, still bothered by a right shoulder strain, has pulled out of the Melbourne slam, too.

Other top players are healthy enough to play but hurting nonetheless. Top seed Lindsay Davenport, the world’s top-ranked player, forfeited a quarterfinal match in last week’s Sydney International warm-up tournament because of bronchitis, and her long-troublesome knee has been acting up of late.

Serena Williams, seeded no. 7 – just above her sister Venus – reportedly was seen wincing during recent exhibition matches, perhaps from the abdominal strain that caused her to fade in the final of last year’s WTA Tour Championships. Heat illness forced Russia’s Nadia Petrova and Elena Dementieva to withdraw from matches in Sydney, where temperatures reached 122 degrees. Petrova has been battling a muscle strain in her buttock as well.

Lucky for Australian fans, the long list of maladies bodes well for one of their own. Alicia Molik, who turns 24 next week and recently earned her highest ever world ranking (no. 13), could benefit immensely if her colleagues continue to collapse around her.

The nearly 6-foot-tall Molik has the best serve on the women’s tour and is coming off a victory at last week’s Sydney tournament, where she beat fellow Aussie Samantha Stosur in three sets. It was the first all-Australian women’s final in 13 years, and the first time in 25 years that an Australian woman had won in Sydney.

Molik is a muscular player – she weighs nearly 160 pounds – who thumps her forehand and spares little on her second serve. In the last four months of 2004, she won three tournaments as well as the bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in Athens. She lost in the fourth round at last year’s Australian Open and remains a long shot, but she could go farther this year if she can get past Venus Williams, who has never won this tournament.

Williams has been playing exhibitions with her sister Serena rather than any of the tour’s warm up events. Last year, she lost in the third round to Lisa Raymond. If Molik can work her way past Williams to the quarterfinals, she’ll likely face Davenport.

A full-strength Davenport would be a slight favorite to win this tournament, and she may yet prove to be in good health. After talking about retirement much of last year, she recently gave up on setting a departure date from tennis and suggested she might play a full season, or at least through the U.S. Open.

“It’s trying to win that last Grand Slam or another Grand Slam that kind of keeps me excited about playing,” Davenport said before pulling out of Sydney.

Other than the winner of Molik and Williams, Davenport faces little competition until the semifinals. She should fare well in that round, too. The highest seed at the bottom of her half of the draw, no. 3 Anastasia Myskina, played an incredible amount of tennis last year, winning the French Open and anchoring team Russia to the Federation Cup title over France. She lost in the first round in Sydney last week and seems flat heading into the year’s first slam.

The other half of the draw features more potential title contenders, among them Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Amelie Mauresmo, and Svetlana Kuznetsova.

France’s Mauresmo suffered through another frustrating, Grand-Slam-free year in 2004, and she lost some of her country’s sympathy when she decided to skip the Federation Cup final against Russia so she could focus on training for a major title (France, the defending champion, lost 3-2). Mauresmo won’t have to confront many French fans these next two weeks, but the Australians will be rooting against her from the outset: She plays Stosur in the first round.

Serena, who romped over Camille Pin, 6-1, 6-1 this morning, should have an easy time of it until the quarterfinals, where she could face Mauresmo. In the semifinals, she might get another crack at Sharapova, who beat her in last year’s Wimbledon final and in the Tour Championships in Los Angeles.

Will this be Sharapova’s year? She got the lion’s share of attention on the circuit in 2004, though some of the shine began to wear off by year’s end, when her father, the latest in a long line of overzealous tennis parents, got himself into trouble for coaching his daughter during matches. Myskina has since publicly criticized both father and daughter, saying she’ll resign from Russia’s Federation Cup team if it successfully lures Sharapova to its bench from Florida.

Sharapova has said little about the spat, instead declaring that the no. 1 ranking is her prized possession. She and her father do not have to worry about facing Myskina until the finals.