DARK HORSE DJOKOVIC Serbia's Novak Djokovic serves during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 11, 2025. Picture: Adrian Dennis / AFP
Image: Adrian Dennis / AFP
Novak Djokovic is targeting an 11th Australian Open title and record 25th Grand Slam crown but faces an uphill battle against Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
AFP Sport highlights five potential winners of the first Grand Slam of the year, which begins on Sunday:
He may be 37 but the Serb can never be written off on Melbourne Park's blue hardcourts, where he has enjoyed enormous success.
Ranked seven in the world, Djokovic won Olympic gold in 2024 but failed to collect a major for the first time since 2017, leaving his bid to better Margaret Court's all-time 24 Slam titles unfulfilled.
Beaten in the Melbourne semi-finals last year by eventual champion Sinner, he has enlisted the help of long-time rival Andy Murray as coach to try and help him achieve the feat.
Should he do so, it will be his 100th career title, just the third man in the Open era to reach the milestone behind Jimmy Connors (109) and Roger Federer (103).
The Italian won his maiden Grand Slam title in Australia last year, beating Daniil Medvedev in the final, and went on to establish himself as the undisputed world number one.
He won eight titles in 2024, including his second major at the US Open while making the semis at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
Sinner completed a sensational year by leading Italy to a successful defence of the Davis Cup, becoming the first player since Federer in 2005 to go through a season without a defeat in straight sets.
But the 23-year-old's season was rocked by doping accusations that he denies.
A hearing into in a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal against his initial exoneration for twice testing positive for traces of the steroid clostebol last year will be heard in April.
Still just 21, the Spaniard already owns four Grand Slam titles -- including the French Open and Wimbledon last year -- since bursting on the scene with victory at the US Open in 2022.
But he is yet to go beyond the quarter-finals in Melbourne on his three previous visits, crashing in the last eight in 2024 to Alexander Zverev.
Already the youngest man to claim majors on all three surfaces -- clay, hard and grass -- he will surpass compatriot Rafael Nadal as the youngest to complete a career Grand Slam should he triumph in Australia.
Alcaraz, who has never lost a Grand Slam final, finished an injury-marred 2024 as the world number three after winning four titles to take his career tally to 16.
The German has been pursuing a Grand Slam breakthrough for nearly a decade, finishing runner-up at the French Open in 2024 and the US Open in 2020 but unable to take the final step.
After suffering an ankle injury in the semi-final of Roland Garros in 2022, his return to the top was slow.
In that time, Sinner and Alcaraz took up the mantle of Grand Slam kings.
But the 27-year-old heads into the new season with renewed vigour after ending 2024 as world number two, winning more matches than anyone bar Sinner.
A two-time semi-finalist in Australia, including last year when he lost to Daniil Medvedev, Zverev knows he needs to win majors.
The feisty Russian failed to win a title last year, but has often done well at the opening Grand Slam of the year, reaching three of the last four finals.
He was outplayed by Djokovic in 2021 before a heart-wrenching defeat to Rafael Nadal a year later, then imploded against Sinner in 2024, crashing in five sets after being two up.
With Sinner and Alcaraz starting to dominate, the 28-year-old admitted in the off-season that he must "reinvent" himself, reducing his error-count and becoming more aggressive.
The 2021 US Open champion is currently world number five and will begin his bid for a second major title after a low-key build-up.
AFP