It’s not always the case that the Australian Open champions of any given year end that year as the No. 1 seed. There’s a lot of tennis played, including three more grand slams, between January, when the AO is held, and December, when the final rankings for the year are in. But that was the case for Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka in 2024. They won their respective singles titles at Melbourne Park in January last year, and each also ended the year in the No. 1 spot, thanks in part to each winning the US Open in 2024, too.
All this is good news for Australian tennis audiences, as Sinner and Sabalenka return as reigning champions this month –with a steely determination to snare the AO trophies again. As Alan Attwood writes in today’s Tennis magazine, though, there will be plenty of challengers equally determined to wrest the silverware off them, not least Novak Djokovic, who will be chasing his 11th AO trophy.
– Editor, Katrina Strickland.
The Australian Open 2025 edition
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