The Australian Open are traditionally the first highlight of a long tennis year. Will Alexander Zverev achieve his first Grand Slam victory? The qualifying tournament has already started.
The first Grand Slamtournament of the year Australian Openshould make the hearts of most tennis fans around the world beat faster. The 128 best players will compete at the highest level of tennis over two weeks in Melbourne from January 12th to 26th.
The “Happy slam“, like that majortournament, which is also lovingly called, has been impressing for many years with its relaxed atmosphere and is one of the favorite tournaments for a large number of professionals.
The qualification
The actual beginning of the Australian Open is already almost a week earlier. The qualifying tournament started on Monday night (January 6th, 2025, CET), in which, in addition to the 112 participants, another 16 players – who did not make it into the main field due to their current world ranking position – can qualify.
A total of nine players from the German Tennis Federation qualified from Germany for the preliminary tournament, which is only held over two sets instead of three sets as in the main tournament. Each unseeded participant needs three wins to move into the main draw.
Eva Lys, Ella Seidel, Tamara Korpatsch, Mona Barthel (1st round: 1:6, 2:6 against Taylah Preston), Anna-Lena Friedsam (1st round: 6:4, 6:1 against Aliona Bolsova) and Noma Noha Akugue (1st round: 2:6, 3:6 against Ekaterina Makarova) made it to the qualifying round and are hoping for the next step. In the men’s race, Dominik Koepfer, Henri Squire and Maximilian Marterer (1st round: 3:6, 3:6 against Hugo Dellien) have the opportunity to reach the main draw.
The German participants
There are four German men in the main field: Alexander Zverev, Jan-Lennard Struff, Daniel Altmaier and Yannik Hanfmann, and four German women: Tatjana Maria, Jule Niemeier and Laura Siegemund.
Alexander Zverev at the United Cup
Of all the German players, Zverev alone is likely to have a chance of being in the final on January 26th. For all other participants, the main thing is to reach their peak performance from round to round.
The favorites
There will be no way around defending champion Jannik Sinner this year either. The Italian is number one in the world rankings and is hard to beat on hardcourt. There were only three defeats (out of 53 wins) on this surface last year. The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, currently third in the world rankings, will also have a chance of winning the title, although he is in… Down Under never made it past the quarterfinals.
And of course the eternal Novak Djokovic, who has already won ten times Melbourne could triumph, try again to have a say in the title. The 37-year-old Serb is concentrating primarily on the really big tournaments and wants his record to reach 25 overall Grand Slam-Expand victories – whether he is still physically capable of doing so is questionable.
The other favorites include Alexander Zverev, second in the world rankings, and Taylor Fritz (USA), who has been in strong form for weeks.
The favorites
There is no way around defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, who also triumphed in 2023. Last year, the Belarusian once again secured the winner’s trophy without losing a set – and can probably only beat herself in this one too.
Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka celebrates winning the cup in Brisbane
With world number two Iga Swiatek (Poland) and third Coco Gauff (USA), there are two possible candidates who could step into the breach should Sabalenka show an (unexpected) weakness. And: Due to the great balance in the women’s competitions, surprising players always make it into the spotlight, such as last year’s previously relatively unknown Chinese player Zheng Qinwen, who made it to the final.
The prize money
A total of 96,500,000 Australian dollars (the equivalent of approx. 58,203,300 euros) in prize money will be distributed this year. This means that the prize money has increased by a further twelve percent compared to the previous year. The tournament is growing and growing. It is another prize money record. For comparison: In 2016, the total tournament prize money was only around 44 million Australian dollars (approx. 26.5 million euros).
The individual winners in Melbourne will receive 3.5 million AUD (approx. 2.11 million euros). The athletes will receive AUD 128,000 (approx. 77,240 euros) for taking part in the first round.
The junior competition
Both Grand Slamtournaments, there is traditionally also a junior competition, as is the case in Australia. 2014 was able to… Down Under For example, a certain Alexander Zverev could be included in the winners’ list.
In the current edition, which begins on January 18th, two DTB juniors, Niels McDonald (Hannover) and Jamie Mckenzie (Düsseldorf), have qualified.
With Juila Stusek (Heidelberg), Sonja Zhenikhova (Berlin) and Eva Bennemann (Deuten), three DTB juniors have qualified for the main tournament in Melbourne with their strong performances and sufficient world ranking points collected on the respective junior tour.