This time of year, especially in Canada, our televisions become a means of escape.
Hawaii PGA Tour event. The Super Bowl is played in a warm climate. And of course, there’s the Australian Open, also known as the “Happy Slam,” which sounds about right.
Last year, Italy’s Jannik Sinner and American Madison Keys were the happiest when leaving Melbourne Park, the former having won the first of two Grand Slam titles in 2025 and the latter winning the first and only Grand Slam title of her career.
Many of the same characters – as well as some new ones, including an upstart Canadian – will return in this year’s hard-court major.
As tennis season begins in earnest, here are the storylines you should know:
Sinner vs Alcaraz, Part 4?
Let’s pick up where we left off.
Last year, the two undisputed best players in men’s tennis shared four Grand Slams, with Sinner winning the Australian Open and Wimbledon, while Alcaraz won the French Open and US Open. Three of the finals were head-to-head matches, with Sinner winning the decider over the Spaniard in the ATP Tour final.
As we accelerate into a new year and a new season, there’s no reason to believe this all-out competition — we can keep the “emerging” modifier in 2025 — will slow down anytime soon.
If we want to be picky, then of course, Alcaraz split with his coach in the offseason for unknown reasons, and Sinner was the more inconsistent of the two at the last hard-court Slam even before losing the final.
But really, it would be shocking if either player went down before the championship match. Sinner won the event two years in a row, while Alcaraz answered all remaining hard court questions at Flushing Meadows.
Alcaraz, currently ranked number one in the world, will avoid Novak Djokovic. He may have even more motivation as he strives to become the youngest man ever to complete a career Grand Slam.
One last record remains within the great Serbian’s grasp: at the age of 24, he is currently tied with Margaret Court as the player with the most Grand Slam titles in history.
It would be poetic to think of Court’s record as one’s own in his native country.
But Djokovic’s health has been an issue. Djokovic, 38, reached the semifinals of all four majors last year but failed to win a set there, losing twice to Sinner, once to Alcaraz and retiring in Melbourne against Alexander Zverev.
It seems that the end of the Big Three is near.
Yet Djokovic can clearly still compete at the highest level. He qualified for the ATP Tour Finals last year and is currently ranked fourth in the ATP rankings, behind only three men who reached a Grand Slam final last season.
Djokovic is still hard to count out given his career, beating Alcaraz in a big match in the 2024 Olympic finals.
Here’s Djokovic’s latest dichotomy: He won his 101st career title in Athens in November. He has not competed since.
Mboko’s follow-up and other Canadians
The 2025 WTA Rookie of the Year, Victoria Mboko has risen from No. 333 to her current No. 17 ranking, with a season highlighted by Rogers’ home victory at the National Bank Open, along with six other titles and a 22-match winning streak.
Mboko, who hails from Burlington, Ont., also had a happy start to the year, finishing second in the quarterfinals of the Adelaide International, beating Keys (who won the Australian Grand Slam last year).
Over the past decade or so, we’ve seen Canadian stars like Bianca Andreescu and Eugenie Bouchard shine brightly, but fast. Mboko also battled injuries last season, raising concerns among some that she could be on a similar path.
The 19-year-old will face an immediate test of her endurance in a tough draw in Melbourne, where she could face opponents including No. 14 Clara Tauson in the third round and No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round.
Mboko will join fellow Canadian Leylah Fernandez and qualifier Marina Stakusic, who is making her Australian Open debut at the age of 21, in the women’s draw. Fernandez, ranked 22nd, is hoping to bounce back from a strong showing this year in which she won the Washington, D.C. and Japan Opens but lost to Sabalenka at the U.S. Open.
On the men’s side, Felix Auger-Aliassime aims to build on his success at the US Open, where he reached the semi-finals but ultimately lost to Sinner.
The Montreal native, ranked seventh at the end of the major, has put his career into one of the best phases of his career, winning a tournament in Brussels while losing to Sinner in the Paris Masters final and Alcaraz in the ATP Tour final.
In fact, overcoming the odds and beating the best is and has always been the next step in the Canadian’s career.
No. 21 Denis Shapovalov faces a tough task, with Casper Ruud (12th) and Ben Shelton (8th) lurking in the draw. Another Canadian player last season, Gabriel Diallo, struggled in his first-round match against reigning finalist Zverev.
Qualifier Liam Draxl, 24, will make his Grand Slam debut in the first round against Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Last year, the Belarusian lost to Keys in three sets in the final while competing for a third consecutive Australian Open title.
But Sabalenka didn’t let that get to her – she bounced back to reach the French Open final and Wimbledon semifinals before winning the U.S. Open, her fourth career major, all on hard courts.
She will now return to Melbourne Park as a prohibitive favorite, especially after Poland lost two Fed Cup games and second-placed Iga Swiatek’s struggles look set to continue into the new year.
Sabalenka, who spent part of the offseason bringing back the “Battle of the Sexes” with Nick Kyrgios, may have to beat Emma Raducanu and Mboko to go further in the tournament.
Is Coco Gauff’s serving problem solved?
The third-ranked American not only led the WTA in double faults last season, but her 431 was 131 strokes better than the second-place finisher (Shapovalov led the ATP with 302).
Gauff’s struggles were on display last year in Montreal when she double-faulted 43 times in rounds 2, 3 and 4 before losing to Mboko.
In August, she hired a biomechanics coach to overhaul her serve, which seemed to pay immediate dividends as she reached the semifinals of the China Open and won the Wuhan Open.
But in the Fed Cup loss earlier this month, Goff committed 14 double faults. Longtime coach Rik Macci called the errors “mental,” and Goff rebounded in the next game with a 6-1, 6-1 win.
The real test will come at the Australian Open, where if Gauff can keep her serve between the lines, she has almost as good a chance as anyone to claim the title – which would be her third major title.
