We’re three-fourths of the way in which by way of this 12 months’s Australian Open, which is the primary Grand Slam of the skilled tennis season (“season” is a beneficiant time period right here: the circuit is nearly a 12 months lengthy, working from January to November).
If 2025’s match has been a sign of what’s to come back, indicators are pointing to a youthquake: There’s a rising class in males’s tennis that’s born even later than the game’s present megastars, Carlos Alcaraz (21) and Jannik Sinner (23).
They usually’re making a racket.
Three on this cohort are youngsters: Croatia’s Jakub Menšík (19), Brazil’s Joao Fonseca (18), and the US’s Learner Tien (19). On the AO, every beat a prime 10-ranked participant: Menšík dispatched sixth-seed Casper Ruud, Fonseca handily defeated ninth-seed Andrey Rublev (it was the Brazilian’s first ever match at a Slam), and Tien pulled off the largest upset of the group: He bested fifth-seed Daniil Medvedev, a former Slam winner himself, in 5 robust units. It put Tien on a path to turn into the youngest participant to achieve the AO’s Spherical of 16 since Rafael Nadal in 2005.
“New blood is coming,” warned Menšík.
Although he, Fonseca and Tien have now all been eradicated, their names—and potential for elite standing—garnered worldwide buzz (to tennis followers that concentrate past the majors, this wouldn’t be shocking; all of those gamers had stellar junior careers).
The opposite to notice is Alex Michelsen (20), additionally from the U.S. In his first spherical, he despatched Stefanos Tsitsipas, the eleventh seed, to the exit. And the Californian performed phenomenally effectively by way of the following few rounds; within the second and third rounds, he didn’t drop a set. (Michelsen would finally lose to Alex de Minaur within the Spherical of 16.)
“I’ve put in a lot work within the final three, 4 years. I’ve been grinding each single day,” Michelsen stated in a press convention over the weekend. He stunned reporters by including that his skilled aspirations solely surfaced considerably lately: “I didn’t assume I might be a professional till perhaps, age 17.”
Whereas the youth have grabbed loads of headlines, so too has the outdated guard.
Many have belonged to Novak Djokovic (37), the lads’s tennis all time nice and ten time Australian Open winner. For one, the match has marked the world stage debut of his teaching partnership with none apart from Andy Murray—his one-time rival (Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are oft known as “The Huge 3,” however many contemplate Murray to have been as shut a competitor as any to those guys, and a few name them “The Huge 4.”)
Extra remarkably: Djokovic has now superior to his fiftieth main semifinal, after beating Alcaraz in a grueling four-set match that went to about 1:00 am native time in Melbourne. That quantity units one more Djokovic report in males’s tennis, additional cementing the athlete’s legendary standing.
He paid his respects to Alcaraz, who had been vocal about eager to win the entire thing in Melbourne with the intention to full his Grand Slam scorecard (he has championed 2 Wimbledons, 1 U.S. Open and 1 Roland-Garros).
