Jannik Sinner Begins Australian Open Title Defence

World No. 2 and four-time Grand Slam champion Jannik Sinner begins his quest to defend his Australian Open title against 25-year-old Frenchman Hugo Gaston.

The Italian will be hoping to make it a historic ‘threepeat’ down under, having won the event in both 2024 and 2025; dominance Australia has only ever seen achieved by the great Djokovic.

Can Anyone Stop Sinner?

Sinner reached the final of every Major last year, winning both the Australian Open and Wimbledon – the latter being his first non-hard court Major.

His rapid improvement has taken the tennis world by storm, and the worrying thing for the rest of the tour is that he’s showing no signs of slowing down. His serve has notably improved since he first burst onto the scene, and he’s now the most dominant server on tour – he won an astonishing 92% of his 775 service games across 2025.

The 24-year-old’s dominance on hard-court last year was something tennis hasn’t seen since a peak Djokovic, although he was perhaps surprisingly defeated in the US Open final by none other than Carlos Alcaraz, falling at the final hurdle in an attempt to win four hard-court Majors in a row.

A Rivalry For the Ages

His 2025 season was quite simply incredible, ending the year with one Masters 1000, two 500s, and two Grand Slams, topping the year off by also winning the ATP Finals on his home turf. Taking into consideration the fact that he missed three months on tour, it was certainly a season to remember.

Alcaraz and Sinner completely dominated the tour last year, sharing the four Majors equally. But it would be fair to say Alcaraz got the better of him over the course of the year – Alcaraz led the year head-to-head 4-2, dealing Sinner four of his six tour-level losses all season.

Of course, the biggest loss of those is the spectacle that was the 2025 Roland Garros final. Sinner looked set to dethrone the new king of clay, and had three championship points before Alcaraz, like he so often does, flicked a switch. The Spaniard burst into life, saving the championship points, before producing one of the greatest Grand Slam final comebacks of all time, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Potential Calendar Slam

Last year, Sinner was (hypothetically) one singular point away from holding the first 3 Majors of the season. Of course, there’s no guarantee that had he converted one of his three championship points at the French Open, he would have gone on to conquer Wimbledon, but he is certainly knocking on the door of becoming the first male player to achieve the calendar slam since Rod Laver in 1969.

Should he do so, he will certainly cement himself as one of the all-time greats at just 24 years old. But for now, all his focus will no doubt be on defending his Australian Open crown for a second consecutive year.