Alcaraz longs for Sinner’s Australian throne and to complete a historic ‘Grand Slam’

The Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz and the Italian Jannik Sinner, who between them managed to win the ‘big four’ of last season, start as the big favorites to win the title of the 2025 Australian Open that starts this Sunday and in which Serbian Novak Djokovic heads the list of candidates, while in the women’s draw, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka will seek to retain the title and Paula Badosa is emerging as the best national asset.

This Sunday the first ‘big’ of the season starts in Australia. There, the current champion, Jannik Sinner, aims to win his third ‘Grand Slam’ title and become the first Italian player in history to do so, ahead of Nicola Pietrangeli, who won the title at Roland Garros in 1959 and 1960. .

The player from San Candido, who will have a deceptive debut against the Chilean Nicolás Jarry and a team with more ‘traps’, is the top favorite to rise to the sky of Melbourne after being the great dominator of the fast surface during the past year.

Since he was defeated by the German Alexander Zverev in the round of 16 of the US Open 2023, Sinner has achieved victory in 76 of the 82 matches he has played on a hard court and arrives at this first major event after stringing together 14 official wins in a row since who lost the final in Beijing against Carlos Alcaraz, 17 counting the million-dollar exhibition in Saudi Arabia.

And if anyone showed last season that they can defeat the number one in the world, it is the player from El Palmar. The Spaniard arrives in Australia with the title of the top contender to overthrow the transalpine throne, although he is surely the ‘great’ who has historically resisted him the most.

A victory in Australia would make the Murcian, aged 21 years and 266 days on the day of the final, the youngest man in history to complete the ‘Grand Slam’ of his career, surpassing Don Budge in the all-time record and Rafa Nadal in the ‘Open Era’.

Despite not having finished last season in the best of ways, Alcaraz, who already has Roland Garros, two Wimbledon and a US Open, starts 2025 with the aim of lifting a ‘Grand Slam’ again. And the first opportunity to achieve this comes in Australia, the only ‘big’ that still resists him and where he has last year’s quarterfinals, where he was unable to beat Alexander Zverev, as the best result in his three appearances.

The Murcian, third seeded and who has not played an official match since the Davis Cup Finals, will begin his journey on Monday against the Kazakh Alexander Shevchenko and apparently does not have a complicated draw in which he would not meet Sinner until the final , but where in the second week where the fearsome figure of the ‘king’ of Melbourne could appear in the quarterfinals.

And as an alternative to the two great dominators of last season, Novak Djokovic emerges once again. The Serbian, with Andy Murray as a novelty on his bench, aspires in Australia, where he has won 10 times, to win the title 17 years after winning his first ‘Grand Slam’ (2008) and ready to show that he still does not want to close the door after a 2024 where he did not increase his record in ‘majors’ (24), with Alcaraz denying him it at Wimbledon for the second year in a row, but he did achieve the long-awaited Olympic gold by taking the revenge with the Murcian.

If the one from Belgrade, with a misleading draw with a possible early duel with Reilly Opelka, his executioner in Brisbane, does so, he would equal Rafael Nadal’s record for the greatest difference between the first and last men’s Grand Slam singles title (Roland Garros 2005 and 2022) and would become the one with the most in the history of tennis, finally breaking the tie with the Australian Margaret Court.

SABALENKA WANTS TO EXTEND HER GREAT 2024

In addition, the Russian Daniil Medvedev, who has been a finalist in three of the last four editions, but has not yet managed to win, and the German Alexander Zverev, a semi-finalist in 2020 and 2024, are called to be in the shortlist, while in key Spaniard, Jaume Munar, Alejandro Davidovich, Roberto Carballés, Pedro Martínez, Roberto Bautista, Pablo Carreño and Martín Landaluce, the debutant in a ‘Grand Slam’ tournament, complete the participation of the ‘Armada’.

In the women’s draw, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka emerges as the top favorite to retain her title in Melbourne. The current world number one has won the tournament the last two years and has four consecutive finals between the Australian Open and the US Open. A dominance on a hard court that only the Polish Iga Swiatek – winner of the US Open in 2023 – has been able to put in check.

Thus, the number two in the world will be her greatest rival to avoid her third consecutive victory in a list of candidates that could also include the American Coco Gauff or the Kazakh Elena Rybakina, a finalist last year, but always very open in the women’s circuit.

In a second step is the Spanish Paula Badosa. The Spanish tennis player finished last season recovering her best tennis, and her main objective in 2025 will be to go as far as possible supported by her status as eleventh favorite.

In Australia, where the fourth round is her ceiling and where the American Jessica Pegula could await her in this edition, she wants to once again demonstrate that she is among the best tennis players in the world, and, in the process, once again establish herself in the world’s Top 10. ‘ with a great result, although his start to the season has not been very optimal. Along with her, the thriving Jessica Bouzas, who could face Sabalenka in the second round, Cristina Bucsa and Nuria Párrizas complete the Spanish participation in the women’s draw of the first major of the season.