Australian Open 2025: The first Grand Slam of the year begins with tennis at a crossroads
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For years tennis prospered in its bubble of excellence. With Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic pushing each other and the sport to greater heights, we lived in a perpetual state of awe.
But Federer retired in 2022, a broken Nadal walked away last year, and Djokovic’s challenge seems to be on its last legs. The sheen is off. Federer and Nadal are not there to dazzle us to distraction anymore; the cracks are beginning to show.
As the 2025 season dawns, the sport is still reeling under the high-profile doping cases of Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek. Moreover, the lack of transparency and consistency in dealing with the positive drug tests showed the sport and its authorities in poorer light. Even as World No.1 Sinner prepares to launch his Australian Open defence, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appeal against him is pending in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Then there’s the matter of scheduling. The 2025 tennis season began on 27 December last year, with the first of the tour events—the mixed-team United Cup, the Brisbane International, ATP Hong Kong Open and the WTA Auckland Open. Tennis is a layered business with multiple stake-holders—men’s governing body ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and women’s governing body WTA (Women’s Tennis Association), with the overall governing body, the ITF (International Tennis Federation), at the apex of a rather bulky pyramid.
Each of their four Grand Slams have their own committees, so do team events like Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup. With all these power brokers vying for finite time, 52 weeks, 365 days, the tennis calendar now runs over 11 months. Masters 1000 events—which sit a rung below the Grand
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