For Carlos Alcaraz and other top seeds, the Australian Open is the Happy and Scary Slam

Tennis Australia is proud of its flagship tournament, the Australian Open, and delighted with the way it is often called “The Happy Slam.” But for elite players embarking on a new year with much to protect in the way of rep and ranking, the event also qualifies as The Scary Slam.

“A lot of players have played matches and tournaments before Australia (the tournament), and they prepare pretty well for it,” Carlos Alcaraz told me, on a swing through New York last month. “For me, that’s the most challenging thing about Australia.”

Tennis’ great annual reset takes place at the Australian Open, and in one way the game’s haves, including Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka, Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek, should thank their lucky stars that the much-debated “off-season” (roughly, a month) is so fleeting. The psychological capital accumulated by a player melts away quickly as any break lengthens.

Even with a short hiatus, second and third-tier players get big ideas, especially if they are coming off solid late-season results the previous year (when the elites are running on fumes), and committed to working hard during the break.

“Everybody is doing a really solid and pretty good pre-season,” Alcaraz added. “It feels like all the people are going to show his cards on the table, how hard they worked for Australia and to do really good results.”

In other words, all bets are off. The organizers should set off an air-raid siren to start each day.

The keywords for the Australian Open are momentum (sustaining it for the haves, generating it for have nots), preparation (it’s imperative to hit the ground running), fitness (the heat Down Under is a major factor), and pressure (in all its nasty manifestations). You can get slammed in Melbourne, as many of last year’s results demonstrated:

• Twelve women’s seeds were eliminated in the first round, and another eight in the second. Top seed Swiatek lost one round later.
• On the men’s side, nine seeds lost before the third round, and five of the Top 16 seeds failed to reach the fourth round.

Defending men’s champion Sinner closed 2024 on a 14-match winning streak (he’s also won 29 of his last 30 matches), and he’s incredibly won his last 26 sets. The AO will be the first tournament on his dance card, but he is unlikely to get bushwhacked, as going in cold was his game plan last year. That worked out pretty well, much like it has for 10-time champion Novak Djokovic and a few other titans. The approach works—until maybe it doesn’t.

Djokovic is 37 now, and he’s had one foot in and one foot out of the game since winning Olympic gold. He will not enjoy a large margin for error when he meets healthy and fresh rivals eager to roll into 2025—as evidenced by his loss to Reilly Opelka in Brisbane a few days ago.

It feels like all the people are going to show his cards on the table, how hard they worked for Australia and to do really good results. Carlos Alcaraz

The elite players who ran out of steam late last year are in a similar boat, with good reason to feel twinges of concern if not outright fear. That group among the men includes Alcaraz, who has yet to penetrate beyond the AO quarterfinals, and three-time AO runner-up Daniil Medvedev.

On the WTA side, No. 1 Sabalenka was almost as imposing as Sinner late in 2024, and Coco Gauff’s game blazed into life after the US Open. Both women have exploded out of the gate this year, Sabalenka winning Brisbane and Gauff co-anchoring (with Taylor Fritz) the winning U.S. United Cup squad. Unlike Sinner and Alcaraz, the women determined that facing live fire after the long layoff was preferable to keeping their powder dry for the main event. It’s a binary choice with which some players struggle.

In mid-November, still-Slamless but No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev acknowledged he was moonlighting during the ATP Finals, looking ahead to 2025 by putting in extra practice time. He ultimately chose to play United Cup instead of tour events (he won two singles matches for Germany), bent on not getting waylaid by a fit player looking to start his New Year with a bang.

Ben Shelton, the emerging U.S. star, is learning just how difficult it can be to figure out a good approach to the first major of the year. The 22-year-old made his Grand Slam breakthrough in Melbourne, reaching the quarterfinals in 2023. Last year, he was discharged in one of those upset-not upsets in the third round by crafty Frenchman Adrian Mannarino. Match toughness is an issue that plays on his mind.

“It's interesting. At the end of the year, there are certain guys who are in perfect form, they're match tough,” Shelton told me in December. “Maybe they were injured earlier, so they had some breaks and they're coming in and they're playing lights out. Maybe they just won the tour finals, played great matches at Davis Cup, got to those exhibitions and played a lot of good matches. They’re the ones feeling good, while the other guys are like, ‘Oh, I've had six weeks off. I'm not really match tough right now.’”

Is that [situation] something that’s anxiety-inducing, or is it more like. . . opportunistic? Ben Shelton

Young and sturdy, Shelton played well late into the year. He puts a premium on match toughness, hence his commitment to return to Auckland this week, where he made the semis last year. He’s the top seed, but the talented teen Jakub Mensik awaits.

Shelton and Opelka were on a collision course to meet in the third round before the latter withdrew. A fellow acemaker and countryman, No. 171-ranked Opelka—still returning from a long injury break, and having retired in the Brisbane final—lost his last six ATP Tour matches at the end of 2024. Should be play in Melbourne, Opelka is an unseeded, looming X-factor—the kind of guy who is especially dangerous in the first week of the first major of the year.

Acknowledging that (most) everyone comes into Melbourne Park healthy, eager and confident, Shelton posed the question: “Is that [situation] something that’s anxiety-inducing, or is it more like. . . opportunistic?”

Every player in the AO draw will have to face and answer that question in due time. For some it will be the Happy Slam, but for others it will be the scary one.