At the Australian Open 2025, Alexander Zverev, as number two in the tennis world, is on paper the best German hope. The Hamburg resident recently emphasized again that he has big plans. Meanwhile, on the pitch, other German aces have confirmed that they are a force to be reckoned with in Melbourne.
“Everyone knows what I’m chasing, what my goal and my dreams are: to win,” Alexander Zverev underlined his ambitions Down Under at a press conference ahead of the Australian Open 2025. “If you go into a Grand Slam as number two, you have to have the mindset of wanting to win the tournament.”
Words that Zverev has now backed up with a clear opening victory. But there is also no question that the 27-year-old, unlike his supposedly worst competitors Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, has not yet been able to win a Grand Slam. Things are different for three German stars who have recently shown their top form.
Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz reached the final of the doubles competition at the preparatory tournament in Adelaide on Friday. The duo, which won the unofficial Tennis World Cup in 2024 and only lost in the final of the US Open 2024, beat the Finnish-British pairing Harri Heliövaara and Henry Patten 7:6 and 7:5. In the final, the Italians Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori were too high a hurdle. However, at 6:4, 6:7 and 9:11 the German pairing was able to keep up on equal terms.
Is a crazy German tennis dry spell coming to an end?
Krawietz and Pütz seem to be well prepared for their first major title together. Krawietz already won the French Open in 2019 and 2020 together with Andreas Mies, Pütz triumphed with the Japanese Miyu Kato in the mixed doubles competition at Roland Garros in 2023.
At the start, the fourth seeded Krawietz/Pütz in Australia have to beat David Goffin from Belgium and Alexandre Muller from France.
Laura Siegemund’s career has already featured three successes at the four most important tournaments in the tennis world. In women’s doubles, the German won the US Open in 2020 with the Russian Vera Zvonareva, and in mixed doubles she won the title at the US Open in 2016 (with Mate Pavic from Croatia) and at the French Open in 2024 (with Édouard Roger-Vasselin from France). .
In the women’s doubles competition in Adelaide, Siegemund and the Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia lost the semi-finals on Friday against Hanyu Guo from China and the Russian Alexandra Panova, but on the way to the semi-finals Siegemund/Haddad Maia defeated highly traded opponents and underlined this their shape.
In Melbourne, the German-Brazilian pairing is ranked 15th.
By the way: If Siegemund, Krawietz and/or Pütz actually pull off a really big coup, it would be tantamount to a crazy dry spell. So far, no German player has been able to win the title in any doubles competition at the Australian Open. The last time David Prinosil reached the final was in 2001 with Byron Black from Zimbabwe.