Alcaraz And Sinner Learn Opponents For Their Only Warm-Up Matches Before Australian Open
News
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner chose not to compete in any warm-up tournaments at the start of the 2025 season.
With only a couple of weeks before the first Grand Slam of the season - the Australian Open at the start of the new season, tennis players often want to sign up for at least one of the tournaments held in the opening weeks of the new year.
That gives them at least some competitive playing time before hitting the court at one of the four most important tournaments on the calendar. Still, some of the top-ranked players on the ATP Tour chose a different approach in 2025.
Of the players ranked inside of the Top 70 on the ATP Tour, only five chose not to participate in any tournaments prior to the Australian Open. Two of them are Jack Draper and Tallon Griekspoor, who have been struggling with health issues.
The other three are all Top 5 players, which means that in 2025, more Top 5 players didn't play a warm-up tournament than they did. These three players that chose not to compete in any events are the World No. 1, Jannik Sinner, No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz, and No. 5 Daniil Medvedev.
For all three of them, this is in-line with how they started their previous seasons as well. Alcaraz has never played before the start of the Australian Open.
Sinner, on the other hand, played at least one event every time before, except for 2024, when he competed only in one exhibition tournament - the Kooyong Classic. Medvedev also started skipping the warm-up tournaments last year.
To compensate for the lack of match practice before the start of the Australian Open, both Alcaraz and Sinner chose to play exhibition charity matches in Melbourne Park to test themselves on the tennis courts at the Australian Open.
That allows them to play a relatively competitive match at the same venue that the first Grand Slam of the season will be played at, something not many players can do, but because of their status, these two obviously have that option.
The opening week at the Australian Open, during which the qualifying matches are played, will be marked with plenty of these exhibitions.
The reigning ATP World No. 1 Sinner will kick off the AO Opening Week with a match against home player Alexei Popyrin on Tuesday, January 7th, at 4 p.m. local time. In the evening, at 7 p.m., there will be an exhibition event called the Red Bull Bassline held in Melbourne, too.
On the second day of the opening week, on Wednesday, January 8th, last year's finalist Qinwen Zheng will kick off the action with a match against Elina Svitolina at 5 p.m. local time. That match will be followed by Alcaraz's match against Alex de Minaur.
On Thursday, January 9th, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, and Alexander Zverev will be among those participating in a mixed doubles event at 5 p.m. before a special event called "A Night with Novak" at 7 p.m. This event will obviously be headlined by Novak Djokovic.
On Friday, January 10th, Alcaraz will take on Sinner's first opponent, Popyrin, at 5 p.m., while the Italian player will end his preparations with a match against Stefanos Tsitsipas at 7 p.m.
After that, the Australian Open will again start with first-round matches played on Sunday, January 12th.
