Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka will defend their respective titles at the Australian Open 2025, the first Major and first major event of the season, which will start on January 12. The Happy Slam has many reasons for interest this year. Sinner and Iga Swiatek will play the Australian Slam with two different doping issues experienced in 2025 (overcome for the Polish, still in progress for the Italian).
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Novak Djokovic will seek his 25th Major and the 100th title of his career, while Carlos Alcaraz wants to complete the Career Grand Slams, Iga would like the first major result at the Happy Slam.
But who are the players who have written the history of the Australian Open?
The 1920s were an important period, because there were also the first editions of the women's singles: they were the years dominated by Daphne Akhurst, winner of 5 editions of the tournament. The 1920s and 1930s were instead marked in the men's singles by Jack Crowford, Don Badge, Fred Perry and Jean Borotra.
Between the 1930s and 1970s, in the men's singles, the tournament had three dominators between the 1940s and 1970s: Ken Rosewall, winner of 4 titles, Roy Emerson, winner of 6 titles and Rod Laver, who triumphed 3 times. The women's singles was essentially linked to three names: Nancye Wynne, winner of 6 titles, the queen of the Australian Open Margaret Smith (who still holds the record of 11 titles) and Evonne Goolagong, winner of four editions of the tournament.
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The 80s were the years of Mats Wilander (3 titles), Stefan Edberg (2 titles), Ivan Lendl (2 titles), Martina Navratilova (3 titles), Chris Evert (2 titles) and Steffi Graf (4 titles), followed, in the 90s, by Jim Courier, Boris Becker (2 titles), Andre Agassi (4 titles), Pete Sampras (2 titles), Monica Seles (4 titles) and Martina Hingis (3 titles).
From the 2000s to today, the men's singles has been dominated by Roger Federer (6 titles) and Novak Djokovic (10 titles, record). The Swiss and the Serbian are perhaps considered the greatest men's singles players of the Australian Open, despite the different surface compared to classic tennis (in fact the tournament was played on grass courts until 1988).
In the mid-2000s and 2010s, important victories came for Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal and Stan Wawrinka. In women's singles, there were 7 titles by Serena Williams, but also victories by Victoria Azarenka (2 titles), Maria Sharapova, Kim Klijisters, Li Na, Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki, Naomi Osaka and Sofia Kenin.
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Then, Rafael Nadal wrote the history of men's tennis, winning his 2nd AO title and his 21st Slam, while Ashleigh Barty won a Slam for the Australian, in Melbourne, after years, in 2022. Then it was the turn of Nole and Sinner, in the last two years, of Sabalenka both in 2023 and 2024.
