You may have noticed it’s getting hotter outside. And that means one thing: the tennis is coming.

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The Australian Open lead-in tournaments are just days away, with the stars of the ATP and WTA tours heading down under for crucial tests of form ahead of the main event, which begins on Sunday January 12.

And while we’re not at the peak of a few years ago, when Ash Barty ruled the tennis world and climbed the mountain to become a home grand slam champion, it’s still a pretty damn good time to be an Aussie fan.

Alex de Minaur just had a career year, leading a stronger-than-ever crop of male talent, and even Nick Kyrgios is back (for real this time). The women’s side is less advanced, but there’s young talent coming through, and it’s always nice to be able to brag that you knew about a future star before your friends did.

Heck, there’s even a Hewitt to talk about. It’s a promising summer.

So here’s everything you need to know heading into the Aussie summer of tennis, including our guide to the upcoming tournaments and the big Australian Open talking points.

Desperate Demon down to dump decade-long drought

At this point it’s not so much a hump Alex de Minaur needs to get over, but a mountain.

He made the quarter-finals of three grand slams in 2024 – but unfortunately for his home fans, the Aussie is yet to make the last eight at the Australian Open.

He has been incredibly consistent, making the third round twice in a row, then making the fourth round thrice in a row, always going exactly as far as his seeding said he should. Last year, seeded 10th, he lost to No.5 Andrey Rublev; in 2023, seeded 22nd, he fell to No.4 Novak Djokovic; in 2022, seeded 32nd, he was beaten by No.11 Jannik Sinner.

In fact de Minaur has never beaten a seeded player at the Australian Open, and unless he can break that drought (or there’s a crazy streak of upsets elsewhere in his quarter), he’s bound for another first-week exit.

While Alexei Popyrin and Jordan Thompson are in the form of their lives, as we’ll discuss in a bit, de Minaur realistically carries the hopes of a nation – as with Ash Barty gone, there is no realistic possibility of a big fortnight from a local woman.

And with de Minaur yet to make a deep run, it has now been a decade since a local man made the Australian Open quarter-finals.

Nick Kyrgios was the fifth to do it since the tournament moved to Melbourne Park when, unseeded in 2015, he took advantage of Roger Federer’s shock loss to Andreas Seppi and came back from two sets down against the Italian in the fourth round, losing in straight sets to eventual runner-up Andy Murray.

Kyrgios’ form in his return to competitive tennis is likely to be shaky, so we return to de Minaur’s chances.

As of publication, he is ranked a very impressive No.9 in the world, but he’s one spot away from feeling a whole lot safer going into the draw.

If he is seeded between ninth and 12th, de Minaur would be scheduled to face a player seeded between No.17 and No.24 in the third round, followed by a player seeded between No.5 and No.8 in the fourth round. The latter would be one of Daniil Medvedev, Casper Ruud, Novak Djokovic (again) or Andrey Rublev (again).

But if de Minaur can head into Melbourne Park seeded 8th (going much higher is unrealistic), he would face a player seeded between No.25 and No.32 in the third round, and then someone between No.9 and No.12 in the fourth round. The latter group currently includes himself, plus Grigor Dimitrov, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Tommy Paul.

Sure, either way de Minaur will need to win some tough matches, but these are very real differences.

So can de Minaur move into the top eight of the ATP rankings? The race is between him and No.8 Rublev, who sits just 15 points ahead (basically nothing).

It’ll be about which man can defend his points better – the rankings work on a 12-month clock, with points expiring after that period, so if you’re returning to a tournament you won you’re “defending” those points.

Both men earned a similar haul in early 2024; de Minaur from the United Cup, where Australia made the semi-finals, with Rublev winning the Hong Kong 250-level event. Both men return to those events in 2025.

Should Rublev flop and de Minaur match his past performance, the Aussie should move up into the top eight, but it’ll be tight. (And we’re not expecting you to track it; we’ll keep you posted.)

It’s not just the Demon as 42-year Aussie first looms

There’s a common pattern for Australia at Melbourne Park – there’s one notable local seed to cheer for, and they cop all the pressure, and understandably wilt under it. Ash Barty is the obvious exception.

Alex de Minaur would be in that position again, except this time he has some company.

For the first time since 1982, we’ll see three Aussie men seeded at the Australian Open, with Alexei Popyrin and Jordan Thompson about to join de Minaur in the protected ranks.

Popyrin’s stunning Masters 1000 win in Canada in August means he’s likely to be seeded at most grand slams this year; he’s ranked No.24 in the world as it stands.

Thompson, currently No.26, has worked his way into the lower seeds the more traditional way – grinding points out at tournaments across the world. His fourth-round berth at the US Open and win at the Los Cabos 250 were the biggest contributors to his points tally.

Both men look locked into a seed, though Thompson is at some risk of dropping – he’s defending semi-final points from the Brisbane International, and there are four players within 125 points of him who could theoretically move ahead.

The seeds will be confirmed after the lead-in tournaments are complete. But as we’ve said, it seems pretty clear all three men will have a number next to their names in the bracket.

That means Popyrin and Thompson will be favoured to make at least the third round, when they’ll play someone ranked higher; in fact either man could face de Minaur at that stage. (If Popyrin can stay 24th or better, he’ll play someone seeded 9th to 16th, while Thompson looks locked into the 25th-32nd bracket and would play someone seeded 1st to 8th.)

Popyrin has made the third round three times before but Thompson has never gone that far at Melbourne Park – and getting three locals into the last 32, all with realistic hopes of going further, would be a massive result for Australian tennis.

They’ll have plenty of compatriots in the draw with Chris O’Connell, Aleks Vukic, Rinky Hijikata, Thanasi Kokkinakis, James Duckworth and Adam Walton all earning main draw entries, plus the return of Nick Kyrgios via a protected ranking.

So how far can Kyrgios actually go?

It was cruel to see Nick Kyrgios struck down by injury at the time his career was finally peaking.

The 29-year-old has played just one match since October 2022, only four since he walked into a US Open quarter-final as the tournament favourite, and it was just a few months before that he reached a grand slam final – where on the grass courts of Wimbledon, he led Novak Djokovic one set to none.

A series of wrist and knee injuries has kept Kyrgios off the court since, and he’ll return to the court at the Brisbane International starting in late December, hoping to get enough live practice in before the Australian Open itself.

His great mate Thanasi Kokkinakis, with whom he won the doubles title in 2022 – the last time he played at Melbourne Park – has backed Kyrgios to impress upon his return.

“With that serve you almost don’t even need to play that well at times to give yourself a chance,” Kokkinakis said this week.

“So if his body’s in good nick, which I’m sure it will be, for sure. He’s always a dangerous threat.”

It would be optimistic to the extreme to expect Kyrgios to return at a top-20 level. And there’s some risk we see a repeat of Rafael Nadal’s attempted comeback in 2024, where he was injured in Brisbane and didn’t even make it to Melbourne.

But as Kokkinakis says, Kyrgios’ skillset will make him a dangerous unseeded floater in the draw – absolutely nobody will want to play him, especially on his preferred court John Cain Arena.

“The injury I had was brutal. The surgeon said I probably wouldn’t be able to play again,” Kyrgios said a couple of months back.

“But I said whatever, just try and get me another two to three years of my career. It’s been a brutal last couple of years, but just being out there to play in front of a home crowd – I just want to be out there, lighting up the crowd and playing in front of my own country.

“Whether it is good or bad, it will certainly be a lot of fun, for sure. I am looking forward to it. My only motivation to come back and play is to try and win a grand slam, and I’ll give it one more shot.”

But none of the Aussies are among the favourites…

It’s not purely a three-man race for the men’s singles title, because Daniil Medvedev is a perennial threat (though he’s out of form and clearly burned out) and Alex Zverev will be thereabouts as the No.2 seed (though he always loses the big ones).

But it seems exceedingly likely the champion will be one of Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic.

Sinner is the obvious pick as the best player in the world right now, the reigning champion of both hard court slams and the looming No.1 seed. Since the French Open, he has won 41 of 44 matches.

Alcaraz is one of the three men to have beaten him in that period, and won the other two slams in 2024. He’s not exactly in top form more recently though, losing four of his past seven matches, with niggling injuries impacting him across the year.

But as Frances Tiafoe quipped recently after sharing an exhibition event in Charlotte with the Spaniard, when Alcaraz had said the year was “complicated” for him: “Tough winning two majors. I hope you don’t have a season like that again.”

Both young superstars have proven themselves able to surpass Djokovic, but the 24-time slam champion will head into his favourite tournament underseeded and dangerous.

Djokovic skipped the ATP Finals as part of a much-quieter season where he mostly prioritised the majors; this means his ranking is deflated because he didn’t bank as many points at smaller events. As it stands, he’ll head into Melbourne Park ranked No.7.

He was still very good in 2024, winning Olympic gold, but otherwise when active he was slightly disappointing – passing the torch to Sinner in the semi-finals of the Australian Open, and more dramatically losing in the third round at the US Open to Alexei Popyrin.

We say slightly disappointing because we’re comparing him to his own impossible standard. The 37-year-old is still cementing himself as the GOAT through his incredible longevity, and he’s trying to give himself the best chance possible of winning a 25th slam by easing off elsewhere on the calendar. It makes total sense.

Oh and just for a bit of added fun, he’s now being coached by Andy Murray. The perfect person to cut to in the coaches’ box for grumpy mid-match reactions.

Avoiding Sinner’s half of the draw, and hoping to use whatever magic he seems to gain in Australian Open finals, seems Djokovic’s best bet. But either way he cannot be counted out.

Can anyone dethrone the new hard court queen?

Once too unpredictable to trust, now Aryna Sabalenka looks a sure thing on hard courts, making the final of the last four Australian and US Opens combined, winning three of them.

The Belarusian was dominant at Melbourne Park last time out, defending her title without dropping a set, while only dropping one set total at Flushing Meadows.

She didn’t have a perfect year, but nobody does in women’s tennis, and while she lost twice at the WTA Finals she otherwise finished the season a high note winning 22 of 23 matches at one stage.

The brief periods Sabalenka has held the world No.1 ranking over the past two years were intermissions from Iga Swiatek being on top, with the Polish superstar winning her fourth French Open in 2024.

But she battled issues both on and off the court this past year; most pressing being the fact she continues to stumble badly at the Australian Open.

Swiatek has only made it out of the fourth round there once, in 2022 when she lost in the semi-finals, and after coming into the 2024 event as the dominant, in-form top seed lost in the third round to teen Linda Noskova.

Logically a player of Swiatek’s talent should make a deep run, and probably win, the tournament at some point – she has a US Open on her resume so we know she can win hard court majors. But something always goes wrong in Melbourne for her.

Reigning finalist Qinwen Zheng, who backed up her run last tournament with a career-best year, and 2023 finalist Elena Rybakina should be thereabouts as well, while Paula Badosa’s strong form on the late-season hard-court swing makes her a dark horse.

But otherwise the third main contender is Coco Gauff, still just 20 years old, a reigning semi-finalist and the 2023 US Open champion.

Gauff gave Sabalenka a run for her money at Melbourne Park in 2024 and, after beating her in the semis of the WTA Finals, claimed the end-of-season title to keep herself right at the pointy end of the list of 2025 contenders.

As mentioned earlier there is no realistic possibility of a deep tournament run from any Australian women, but hopes are growing for Olivia Gadecki, the 22-year-old who became the Aussie No.1 this past year after making her maiden WTA singles final in Guadalajara.

Identified by Ash Barty as the next leader of Aussie women’s tennis, the question is whether she’s ready to announce herself to the broader public. And the place to do that is Melbourne Park.

After missing the 2022 Australian Open because she was unwilling to be vaccinated against Covid, Gadecki won her one and only grand slam main draw match in 2023 over Polina Kudermetova, then falling to former slam champion Sloane Stephens in the first round in 2024.

She is the only Aussie woman to have earned direct main draw entry, and beat Stephens along with world No.11 Danielle Collins in that run to the final in Mexico in September; her draw will decide whether she can bank another Australian Open win (or more), as she will hope to avoid a seeded opponent.

It’ll be the same for the other 10-or-so Aussies who receive main draw wildcards, with the likes of Daria Saville (making her return from yet another injury hiatus) and Kim Birrell worth keeping an eye on.

AUSTRALIAN SUMMER OF TENNIS 2025 CALENDAR

UNITED CUP

Dates: Friday December 27 to Sunday January 5

Venues: Sydney (Ken Rosewall Arena) and Perth (RAC Arena)

Category: ATP/WTA international mixed team competition

Draw size: Six groups of three countries, 18 countries in total, six players per country

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

How to watch: Channel Nine and streaming

The $15 million teams event returns with ranking points and national pride on the line – and the players do genuinely seem to enjoy the camaraderie the event sparks.

Three groups will play in Sydney with another three in Perth, with each nation playing two ties. The three group-winners and best runner-up then play a quarter-finals round in that city, before all semi-finalists congregate in Sydney to wrap the event.

All ties feature a men’s singles match (best of three sets), women’s singles match and mixed doubles match (two tiebreak sets and a match tiebreak if needed).

Australia headlines Group F in Sydney, and will face Argentina (night of Saturday December 28) and Great Britain (night of Wednesday January 1). The team is led by top-ranked Aussies Alex de Minaur and Olivia Gadecki, plus Omar Jasika and Destanee Aiava as backup singles options, with Matt Ebden and Ellen Perez in for the doubles.

De Minaur is likely to face British girlfriend Katie Boulter, especially if the mixed doubles portion of the tie proves critical. He performed well last time out, leading the Aussies out of a group of death also featuring Britain and the USA, first beating Taylor Fritz and then Novak Djokovic and Alex Zverev in the playoff rounds.

Germany surprisingly won the 2024 tournament, despite Zverev’s loss to de Minaur in the semi-finals, beating Poland. But the reigning champions are weaker this year with Angelique Kerber replaced by Laura Siegemund.

The Polish, led by Iga Swiatek and Hubert Hurkacz, will be a real threat again along with the USA (Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff), Greece (Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari) and Italy (though Jannik Sinner will not play, with Flavio Cobolli joining Jasmine Paolini).

BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL

Dates: Sunday December 29 to Sunday January 5

Venue: Brisbane (Queensland Tennis Centre)

Category: WTA 500/ATP 250

Draw size: WTA 48 singles, ATP 32 singles

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

How to watch: Channel Nine and streaming

The biggest lead-up singles tournament to the Australian Open is headlined by 24-time slam champion Novak Djokovic, who makes his first appearance in Brisbane since 2009.

He’ll be a red-hot chance of starting his season off on a high note, with world No.10 Grigor Dimitrov, world No.13 Holger Rune and world No.18 Frances Tiafoe his main threats in the draw.

But there’s also a strong Aussie contingent including the competitive return of Nick Kyrgios, plus the in-form pair of Alexei Popyrin (world No.24) and Jordan Thompson (world No.26), both of whom are set to be seeded in Melbourne.

The women’s side is even stronger with world No.1 and defending Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka getting her campaign underway, along with fellow top-10ers Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro and Daria Kasatkina, plus the likes of veteran star Victoria Azarenka and 17-year-old future superstar Mirra Andreeva.

On the Aussie front, Ajla Tomljanovic – currently ranked No.108 in the world – has been given a main draw wildcard.

CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL

Dates: Sunday December 29 to Saturday January 4

Venue: Canberra (Canberra Tennis Centre)

Category: WTA 125/ATP Challenger

Draw size: WTA/ATP 32 singles

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

The smallest of this set of lead-up tournaments features Anna Bondar (WTA world No.93) and Taro Daniel (ATP world No.84) as top seeds.

A number of promising young Aussies are in the draw, including world No.1 junior girls player Emerson Jones – the first Australian girl to top the ranking since Jelena Dokic, and first Australian overall since Nick Kyrgios.

ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL

Dates: Monday January 6 to Saturday January 11

Venue: Adelaide (The Drive)

Category: WTA 500/ATP 250

Draw size: WTA 48 singles, ATP 32 singles

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

How to watch: Channel Nine and streaming

The women’s tournament primarily features the top players not involved in the United Cup, with five top-10ers including American pair Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, Daria Kasatkina and Barbora Krejcikova.

The exception is 2024 breakout star Jasmine Paolini – off the back of two grand slam finals appearances in Paris and London, and a career-high ranking of world No.4 – who will back up from the teams event. (Italy is unlikely to go too deep in the tournament with Jannik Sinner not participating.)

The entry list is full of Australian Open seeds, with only 2023 Wimbledon champ Marketa Vondrousova and three-time slam finalist Ons Jabeur (who are both coming off injuries) set to not have that protection at Melbourne Park.

The men’s side is weaker, with only a 250-level tournament here as well as Auckland in the week before the grand slam as most stars eye a more relaxing build-up.

Just two top-20 men, Tommy Paul and Lorenzo Musetti, will participate with reigning champion Jiri Lehecka, Seb Korda, Felix Auger-Aliassime the biggest remaining names.

There’s at least some chance of an Aussie winner here with Jordan Thompson backing up from Brisbane, plus a wildcard for hometown favourite Thanasi Kokkinakis.

HOBART INTERNATIONAL

Dates: Monday January 6 to Saturday January 11

Venue: Hobart (Domain Tennis Centre)

Category: WTA 250

Draw size: 32 singles

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

Those unable to earn entry into Adelaide have opted for Hobart, making the field stronger than you might think with nine top-50 players.

It includes two recent Australian Open semi-finalists – Magda Linette (2023) and Dayana Yastremska (2024) – plus former grand slam champion Sloane Stephens, two-time Hobart champion Elise Mertens and breakout Kiwi star Lulu Sun, who cracked the WTA top 40 after a run to the quarter-finals of this past Wimbledon as a qualifier.

AUSTRALIAN OPEN QUALIFYING

Dates: Monday January 6 to Thursday January 9

Venue: Melbourne (Melbourne Park)

Category: Grand Slam qualifying, WTA and ATP

Draw size: 128 entrants for 16 qualifiers

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

The last chance for entry to the year’s first grand slam takes place across Melbourne Park as the main event of what the tournament calls Opening Week.

While plenty of eyes will be on the tour journeymen and women desperate for a first-round payday (and perhaps more), the week will also feature charity matches on Rod Laver Arena, with Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Qinwen Zheng, Alex de Minaur and Alexei Popyrin all lined up.

The draw for the Australian Open will be held during this period, on the steps of Margaret Court Arena on Thursday January 9.

AUSTRALIAN OPEN

Dates: Sunday January 12 to Sunday January 26

Venue: Melbourne (Melbourne Park)

Category: Grand Slam, WTA and ATP

Draw size: 128 singles, 64 doubles

Surface: Outdoor hard courts

How to watch: Channel Nine and streaming

Don’t really need to explain this one, hey?