MELBOURNE: The Williams sisters have emerged as the bookies' favourites for more Grand Slam glory at the Australian Open, but the field remains wide open.

Triple champion Serena just pips her sister Venus as favourite, with other realistic contenders including world number one Jelena Jankovic, fellow Serb Ana Ivanovic and Russian pair Dinara Safina and in-form Elena Dementieva.

The ever-confident Serena is searching for her 10th Grand Slam title and gets her campaign underway against China's Meng Yuan on Tuesday.

Williams added that she felt she was a better player now than five years ago when she dominated the game, winning Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open in a storming 2002.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus has never won the title here but feels the time could be ripe for her to lift the trophy.

On-song Olympic champion Dementieva is a dark horse but clings to the belief that she can break through for her first Grand Slam title after 10 years of under-achievement.

The world number four is in a rich vein of form, capturing back-to-back WTA titles in Auckland and Sydney.

Dementieva, 27, is confident she can become the second oldest maiden women's Slam winner of the Open era, after Czech Jana Novotna (29) at Wimbledon in 1998.

Serbia's Jankovic is world number one despite never winning a Grand Slam, and is another who could be poised to go the distance after crashing in the semis to Sharapova last year.

Ivanovic, who lost to Sharapova in last year's final, was bundled out of the Brisbane International last week in the quarter-finals by Amelie Mauresmo.

The French Open champion knows she has to knuckle down if she is to have any chance here.

The effervescent 21-year-old needs a lift after a poor second half of last season. After winning her first Grand Slam at Roland Garros, she lost 10 out of 20 matches and won only one title, a tier-two event in Linz.

Safina is also well placed to make her Grand Slam breakthrough after climbing to third in the world rankings at the end of 2008. She heads into the tournament in the best physical shape of her career.

Fellow Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva are seen as outside chances.