Who are the favourites and when are the finals? Al Jazeera gives a low-down on the year’s first tennis Grand Slam.
After a brief break in the tennis calendar, the world’s top stars have descended upon Australia as the year’s first Grand Slam gets under way in Melbourne.
Amid the next generation of tennis icons, including defending champion Jannik Sinner and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, all-time great Novak Djokovic will have his eyes set on a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title at his favourite hunting ground.
In the women’s draw, Aryna Sabalenka will look to continue her happy streak in Australia but will face stiff competition from Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Qinwen Zheng.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Australian Open 2025:
When does the Australian Open 2025 main round begin?
After six days of qualifying round action, the main draw of the tournament will begin on Sunday, January 12.
When are the Australian Open 2025 finals?
Men’s singles: Sunday, January 26 at 7:30pm (08:30 GMT)
Women’s singles: Saturday, January 25 at 7:30pm (08:30 GMT)
Men’s doubles: Saturday, January 25 (after women’s singles final)
Mixed doubles: Saturday, January 25 (after men’s doubles final)
Women’s doubles: Sunday, January 26 (after men’s singles final)
Where is the venue of the Australian Open?
The tournament will be played on the blue-coloured hard courts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia.
The three main courts are the Rod Laver Arena, with a capacity of 15,000, the John Cairn Arena (10,500) and the Margaret Court Arena (7,500).
How are the players drawn in the tournament?
As in other Grand Slams, the top 32 players in the ATP and WTA rankings enter the main draw automatically and are seeded to ensure that they don’t meet in the earlier rounds of the tournament.
Most of the remaining entrants enter the main round after playing qualifying rounds, while some – local players and former major winners who have dropped in rankings – are handed wild card entries from tournament organisers.
Who are the defending champions of the Australian Open?
Men’s singles: Jannik Sinner (Italy)
Women’s singles: Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus)
Men’s doubles: Rohan Bopanna (India) and Mathew Ebden (Australia)
Women’s doubles: Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) and Elise Mertens (Belgium)
Mixed doubles: Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) and Jan Zieliński (Poland)
Who are the top seeds?
Men’s singles (top 10):
- Jannik Sinner (Italy)
- Alexander Zverev (Germany)
- Carlos Alcaraz (Spain)
- Taylor Fritz (USA)
- Daniil Medvedev (Russia/no flag)
- Casper Ruud (Norway)
- Novak Djokovic (Serbia)
- Alex de Minaur (Australia)
- Andrey Rublev (Russia/no flag)
- Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria)
Women’s singles (top 10):
- Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus/no flag)
- Iga Swiatek (Poland)
- Coco Gauff (USA)
- Jasmine Paolini (Italy)
- Qinwen Zheng (China)
- Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan)
- Jessica Pegula (USA)
- Emma Navarro (USA)
- Daria Kasatkina (Russia/no flag)
- Danielle Collins (USA)
Who are the favourites to win the Australian Open 2025?
Men’s singles:
Djokovic: Despite failing to win a Grand Slam in 2024 and reaching the 25th singles title record, the 37-year-old won the Olympic gold. The Serb can never be written off in Australia, where he has enjoyed enormous success and will now be coached by longtime rival Andy Murray.
Should he win in Melbourne, it will be his 100th career title, just the third man in the Open era to reach the milestone behind Jimmy Connors (109) and Roger Federer (103).
Sinner: The Italian won his maiden Grand Slam title in Australia last year and went on to establish himself as the undisputed world number one by winning eight titles in 2024, leading Italy to a successful defence of the Davis Cup.
However, the 23-year-old’s season was rocked by doping accusations that he denies.
Sinner went through 2024 without a defeat in straight sets, becoming the first player since Federer in 2005 to do so, and will look to begin 2025 in a similar fashion down under.
Alcaraz: Still just 21, the Spaniard already owns four Grand Slam titles since bursting on the scene with victory at the US Open in 2022, but is yet to go beyond the quarterfinals in Melbourne on his three previous visits, crashing in the last eight in 2024 to Alexander Zverev.
Already the youngest man to claim majors on all three surfaces – clay, hard and grass – he will surpass compatriot Rafael Nadal as the youngest to complete a career Grand Slam should he triumph in Australia.
Alcaraz, who has never lost a Grand Slam final, finished an injury-marred 2024 as the world number three after winning four titles to take his career tally to 16.
Women’s singles:
Sabalenka: Gunning for her third consecutive Australian Open crown, the Belarusian is the woman to beat after the best season of her career in 2024, capped by being named WTA Player of the Year last month.
Sabalenka will be the first woman to win the Australian Open three years in a row since Martina Hingis in 1999 should she go all the way, and she showed she was in the mood with a romp to the trophy at the season-opening Brisbane International, dropping only one set.
The victory continued the 26-year-old’s superb form from 2024 where she reached seven finals and won four tournaments.
Swiatek: The world number two is a five-time major champion but she has never shone at Melbourne Park, only progressing beyond the fourth round in 2022.
The Pole began her 2025 campaign with four straight singles wins but has been competing after serving a one-month doping suspension, due to testing positive for a banned substance she said came from a contaminated supplement.
Swiatek has played and won in all five of her Grand Slam finals, four of them at the French Open.
Gauff: The 20-year-old has bounced back impressively from parting with coach Brad Gilbert to win the WTA 1000 in Beijing and the WTA Tour Finals to end 2024.
The world number three again looked in prime form as she inspired the US to victory over Poland in the mixed-teams event of the United Cup, and her confidence is high heading into Melbourne.
The American will look to get her second Grand Slam title under her belt in Melbourne.
Queens coming for the Melbourne crown 👑 pic.twitter.com/XnmfdZlixT
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 8, 2025
What’s the prize money?
The total prize money is $59.8m, a 12 percent increase from 2024.
The US Open will hand out a $2.16m reward for singles champions and Men’s and women’s doubles champion teams will receive $502,000.
The breakdown in the singles category (men and women) is:
Champions: $2.16m
Runners-up: $1.17m
Semifinalists: $0.68m
Quarterfinalists: $412,242
Round of 16: $260,363
Third round: $179,759
Second round: $123,974
First round: $81,822
Where to watch, follow and stream the Australian Open tennis Grand Slam?
Al Jazeera will provide live text and photo coverage of the men’s and women’s singles finals.
The official broadcasters of the Australian Open are:
- Africa: beIN Sports and SuperSport.
- Europe: Eurosport, SRG SSR.
- Asia Pacific & Oceania: ESPN, Tennis Channel, beIN Sports, CCTV, iQIYI, GDTV, WOWOW, Nine, Stan Sport, Digicel, CJ ENM, TDM, ESPN International, SKY, Sportcast and K-Plus.
- India & subcontinent: Sony Sports Network.
- Latin America & Caribbean: ESPN International.
- Middle East: beIN Sports.
- North America: ESPN, TSN, RDS and Tennis Channel.
- Central Asia: Sony Sports Network and Eurosport.