defeated defending champion Serena Williams in the final, 6–4, 3–6, 6–4 to win the Women's Singles tennistitle at the 2016 Australian Open. Kerber became the first woman to win a singles major title after having saved a match point in the first round, which she did against Misaki Doi. She is also the first German of either sex to win a major since Graf at the 1999 French Open. Serena Williams was attempting for the second time to equal Steffi Graf's career record of 22 major singles titles. Serena Williams' loss to Angelique Kerber in the final ended Serena's 8 match winning streak in Grand Slam finals. The top three seeds were in contention for the world No. 1 ranking at the beginning of the tournament. However, Halep and Muguruza were eliminated in the first and third rounds, respectively, with Williams retaining the top spot at the end of the tournament. The twelve seeds that lost in the opening round was the most in the opening round of any women's major tournament since the 32-seed draw was adopted at the 2001 Wimbledon Championships. Johanna Konta became the first British woman to reach the semi-final of a major since Jo Durie in 1983. Zhang Shuai became the first qualifier to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals since Angélica Gavaldón in 1990. This was the first Grand Slam appearance for Japan's first ever Grand Slam winner, Naomi Osaka. She lost to former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the third round. Three years later, Osaka would go on to claim the World Number 1 ranking after winning the 2019 title. This was the final event in which 2008 champion and former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova competed in until the 2017 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. Sharapova failed a drug test at this tournament, testing positive for the banned substancemeldonium, and was suspended from competitive tennis for 15 months as a result. She lost in the quarterfinals to Serena Williams.
Seeds
' Simona Halep ' Garbiñe Muguruza ' Agnieszka Radwańska ' Maria Sharapova ' Petra Kvitová ' Angelique Kerber Venus Williams ' Karolína Plíšková ' Carla Suárez Navarro ' Timea Bacsinszky ' Belinda Bencic ' Roberta Vinci ' Victoria Azarenka ' Madison Keys ' Caroline Wozniacki ' Sara Errani ' Elina Svitolina ' Jelena Janković ' Ana Ivanovic ' Ekaterina Makarova ' Andrea Petkovic ' Svetlana Kuznetsova ' Sloane Stephens ' Samantha Stosur ' Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova ' Anna Karolína Schmiedlová' Kristina Mladenovic ' Irina-Camelia Begu ' Sabine Lisicki ' Lesia Tsurenko ' Caroline Garcia
