Alejandro Davidovich Fokina's season was one to remember, even if he may opt to forget

👉 This week, we're putting the spotlight on our sport's unsung heroes. You can read about more of them here.

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in 2025, by the numbers

• Wins/Losses: 44-26
• Grand Slam record: 7-4
• Australian Open: 4R
• Roland Garros: 2R
• Wimbledon: 3R
• US Open: 2R
• Titles: 0
• Finals: 4
• Year-end Ranking: 14

Why he may have been overlooked in 2025

The 26-year-old is at a career-high ranking inside the Top 15, and while he didn’t go deep at a major this year, he very much did at four other tournaments. Which leads to the statistic that tells the Davidovich Fokina story: zero titles. That goose egg applies to both the Spaniard’s season and his entire career—he’s the best player without a tour-level title I can think of.

Davidovich Fokina’s inability to get over the hump made each stumble near the finish line harder to swallow. But his second-place showing in Washington, D.C. was a new level of pain. After having already lost a championship match while holding multiple championship points—against Miomir Kecmanovic this February in Delray Beach—he similarly failed to close out Alex de Minaur. “I’ve had a couple of brutal ones not go my way,” said de Minaur after saving three championship points, “so I’m glad this one went my way.”

In one sense, Davidovich Fokina hasn’t been overlooked; he’s just been the headline story for the wrong reasons.

Why he may be someone to watch in 2026

There have been countless examples of tennis players who, despite failing to clear a significant hurdle for years, finally get their moment. Madison Keys and Caroline Wozniacki come to mind. They won elusive majors; Davidovich Fokina simply wants any title, and he’s clearly talented enough to do it. In 2025, he beat Taylor Fritz (twice) and Ben Shelton on U.S. hard courts; reached the semifinals in Monte Carlo and, once there, took a set from Carlos Alcaraz; and won seven matches at the Slams, tied for the best total of his career.

There are countless examples in other sports, too, and one of the feel-good stories of this year came in golf. In August, after seemingly a career’s worth of head-scratching misses, highly talented Englishman Tommy Fleetwood finally broke through and won his first PGA Tour-level title. It was the Tour Championship, no less. According to ESPN Research, Fleetwood’s 30 top-five finishes without a victory were the most on the PGA Tour in the past 100 years, and his $33.4 million in career earnings were the most for a golfer who hadn’t won on tour.

If Fleetwood can do it, so can Foki.