AUSTRALIAN OPEN – MEN’S SINGLES
Novak Djokovic @ 21/20
Carlos Alcaraz @ 3/1
Jannick Sinner @ 13/2
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AUSTRALIAN OPEN – WOMEN’S SINGLES
Iga Swiatek @ 9/4
Aryna Sabalenka @ 9/2
Elena Rybakina @ 5/1
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As the world’s best tennis players prepare for the Australian Open, and the first light of a new tennis cycle, British viewers will be loading-up on coffee and eye-drops to help deal with the early-morning starts. These are the only days of the year in the UK when the dawn chorus consists of loud thwacking and coital grunting.
But will we also get to witness the dawning of a new era for the sport? Will we see a new champion crowned down under this time round?
Alas, the chances of a first-time slam winner emerging from the women’s side of the competition seem unlikely. Because all four of the top seeds arrive in Melbourne in decent nick – all four already have slams to their name, and all four will fancy their chances of bagging another.
Current US Open champ, and #4 seed, Coco Gauff won the ASB Classic 250 event in Aukland in impressive style to cement her serious-contender status. While Iga Świątek looks to be operating near the peak of her powers too. The #1 seed’s celebrated ‘bakery’ was doing a roaring trade at the United Cup in Perth – bagels and breadsticks being delivered to her opponents with remarkable regularity on the way to helping Poland reach the finals.
But it was the #3 seed, Elena Rybakina, who cooked-up the most toothsome level of tennis from the grand slam prelude events. Her laser-like filleting of #2 seed, and defending Australian Open champion, Aryna Sabalenka, in the final of the Brisbane International, suggested that it is perhaps the Russian-born Kazakh who possesses the greatest appetite for glory in 2024.
Rybakina is scheduled to meet Świątek in the semi-finals, though the top-half of the draw appears much tougher – whoever makes it to the final could face a fresher seed from the bottom section.
Like boomerangs, many top players are returning in Australia this year. The women’s draw features the comebacks of three more grand slam winners: Angelique Kerber, Naomi Osaka, and Emma Raducanu will all be hoping to quickly rediscover the form that took them to the upper echelons of their craft.
The return of the King of Clay was expected to add star-power to the men’s competition too; but with Rafael Nadal withdrawing due to injury, following a fleeting appearance in Brisbane, the 2024 tournament becomes the first Australian Open since 1999 not to feature the heft of either the Majorcan or Roger Federer.
As Nadal approaches the twilight of his career, one can’t help but wonder: how low in the sky is the sun for Novak Djokovic? A persistent wrist niggle has hindered pre-slam preparations for the ten-times champion; but the Serbian, bolstered by his transcendent biology, will still arrive at Melbourne Park in his usual position as favourite to lift the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup on January 28th. And a benign draw should allow him to coast through the early rounds once again.
Could the defining narrative of this tournament, therefore, be one of the sun still not quite setting on an era of men’s tennis? Of extraordinary careers, somehow, going on and on? Or is that pinkish-orange light we can see in the sky actually an approaching dawn? A sign of extraordinary careers just beginning to ignite?
Because while 20 year-old Wimbledon Champion, Carlos Alcaraz, will be well-placed to add a third grand slam to his tally, it was the 22 year-old Jannik Sinner who, as 2023 drew to a close, looked best-equipped to finally dim the lights on Djokovic, and end the era of The Big Three once and for all.
Sinner is set to meet Djokovic in the semis, with the victor potentially facing Alcaraz in the final; though the Spaniard has Zverev and Medvedev-shaped monoliths blocking his path. Keep an eye on Aussie Alex de Minaur and stalwart Grigor Dimitrov too – both are playing well enough to seriously disrupt the route of any major contenders.
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