Tennis in 2025

• Introduction
• 2025 Tennis Predictions Review
• Double Trouble
• Official Grandpa of the Tour
• The Resurgence
• Alexander "Serious Bublik"
• The Vanishing of the 90s kids
• 2026 Tennis Predictions

2025 tennis season. What a ride it was. Man, it does feel bloated in hindsight. I don't remember a lot of scores and statistics on the top of my head. That's the thing about this sport. There's so much happening on the calendar that the fans never have to complain about inactivity. Even the off-season has exhibition and ITF events! This season finally made me realize that the players complaining about the tour getting lengthy is a real concern. Ever since Masters 1000 events started to be 2 weeks long, not only do the players seem more gassed by the time finals take place but the unintentional pause the event creates on the calendar feels awkward.

I think a normal routine tennis calendar has hit its ceiling and there is no space for more events. However, I don't mean that new events should not be added to the tour. ATP has to make drastic changes to its mandatory participation rules to add new events because otherwise it will just lead to more bloat and complains from the players who grow tired playing every other week.

Genuinely working towards player concerns should be a top priority for the ATP. Tennis is popular than ever at the moment and with sincaraz (Sinner-Alcaraz) rivalry delivering memorable matches all year round, it is the association's responsibility to listen and find workarounds.

2025 Tennis Predictions Review

Here's how my 2025 tennis season predictions fared.

1. Novak Djokovic will win the Australian Open.

Oof. This was a very biased pick to begin with and I did mention it specifically. Djokovic had a very dull 2024 season outside of his Olympic triumph. To be honest, I really wanted him to claim his 25th slam title and Novak at AO was a good look. It did not pay off.

However I had a counter-put for this prediction: "As a counter-put, I don't see anybody other than Sinner winning in Melbourne once again." W on this prediction. I know I played it safe, but as things were going into the 2025 season, it was the safest bet. So, perhaps I can rejoice that I didn't completely butcher my 1st prediction.

2. Alexander Zverev will win Roland Garros or a slam title.

Huge L. Got it all wrong. Zverev had a terrible 2025 season, the one where I predicted he was going to peak and win slams. I really wanted the German to win stuff and challenge sincaraz but his form never picked up gas this year. After perhaps having his best career season in 2024, he only managed to win 1 title all year, on his birthday at the ATP Munich 500. Having watched him play his first Australian Open final at the start of the season, I felt elated to the possibility of him having another strong season. Instead he went on a crazy downward spiral, losing to Djokovic in 4 at the RG quarterfinals and to Arthur Rinderknech in 5 in the first round of Wimbledon.

I am massively disappointed not because my prediction did not pay off but because Zverev let himself and his fans down to the extent that I feel he has hit his ceiling. I still believe inside him is a player who can topple sincaraz on his day but with every loss he is also losing not only the time but also his body that is already frail (He has type 1 diabetes and manages to play on the tour by having insulin injections on a regular basis).

3. Jannik Sinner will win Wimbledon.

GOTCHA!! This was a very straightforward pick for me once I was assured Sinner is here to stay. His attacking baseline strengths paired with his bombastic serve made him an easy pick for Wimbledon success.

4. Taylor Fritz will win his home slam, the US Open.

Tough. Fritz has what it needs to win a slam but it wasn't to be this season. His horrible record against Djokovic didn't help his cause either (0-11) as he lost to Djokovic at the US Open quarterfinals in 4 sets. Fritz still has age on his side and I believe he has what it needs to become the first American in more than two decades to become a grand slam champion.

Apart from these 4 predictions, I made some picks based on my raw intuition. Here's how they fared...

1. Daniil Medvedev to win a slam/multiple Masters 1000 titles.

Bummer. Daniil did manage to win a title on the tour for the first time in over 2 years with his win at the Almaty Open. This was a horrible pick because he managed to win just 1 match across all major combined.

2. Holger Rune to re-enter the top 10/win another Masters 1000 title/make multiple deep runs at slams.

Rune had a great season winning ATP Barcelona 500 defeating Alcaraz in straight sets and entering the top 10. He finished the season ranked 15th.

3. Jack Draper to win a Masters 1000 title/make a deep run at a slam/enter the top 10.

Massive pick. Draper finally stepped up to the pressure and showed what he has got by winning the ATP Indian Wells Masters 1000. He was also runner up at the Madrid Open losing to Ruud in a tight 3-setter and the Qatar Open.

4. Stefanos Tsitsipas to win a clay Masters 1000 title/go deep at Roland Garros.

A bad bet. Tsitsipas had his career worst year on tour in 2025. He won a singular title at the ATP Dubai Open 500 but failed to make any deep runs at slams (3 first round exits) and finished the season ranked 34.

5. Casper Ruud is to play another slam final/make a serious deep run at Wimbledon.

Oof. Maybe I expected too much and in the process went overboard. Ruud failed to reach quarterfinals at any slam events this year but won his first career Masters 1000 title at Madrid this season defeating Jack Draper. He returned to top 10 but finished the season just outside, ranked 12.

I had fun tracking my predictions this year. They add a flavor to the sport by making it more interesting to follow players and events. Tennis seasons continue to get longer every year and feel bloated with so much happening. These predictions help me keep my spirits high in the midst of all the craziness.

Double Trouble

Talking about being crazy, 2025 tennis season delivered a match which will perhaps go down in history on par with THAT 2019 Wimbledon final. Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner in an epic 5-setter, 5 hrs 29 minutes final 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6(10-2). It was the longest final in the RG history and was heard around the world. Alcaraz saved 3 match-points in the 4th set on his serve down 3-5 and flipped the match on its head from there on. He crunched Sinner in the deciding set super-tiebreaker to seal his 2nd consecutive RG title. It was yet another peak in the sincaraz rivalry which continues to give.

The pair played 2 more slam finals this season winning one each. Apart from a rare Zverev appearance in the AO final (courtesy Djokovic who defeated Alcaraz in the quarterfinals which I believe is also a contender for the match of the season) the sincaraz pair did not allow anybody else to have a shot at a grand slam title this season. This was the 2nd consecutive season where the pair dominated to such an extent that if they entered a tournament, the outcome was an open book.

The gap between sincaraz and the rest of the tour is so wide at the moment that it feels embarrassing to even talk about it. At the end of the 2025 season, Alcaraz is the world no. 1 with 12050 points with Sinner a close 2nd with 11500. Alexander Zverev is 3rd highest ranked men's singles player in the world with 5160 points. Zverev who won just 1 title all season is still comfortably a top 3 player.

Zverev is 6340 points off from Sinner in the rankings. For comparison, Reilly Opelka is 4134 points off Zverev ranked 50. The ATP tour continues to thrive with a strong crop of youngsters in the top 20. However, at the top of the tennis summit, sincaraz has no real challengers. It feels so wrong to admit that Novak Djokovic, aged 38, was the only player outside of the pair to play all grand slam semifinals this season. If a 38 year old veteran is all that the tour can currently throw at sincaraz at the moment then there is something eerily wrong with it. It's not like we haven't seen this kind of domination before. The Big-4 for a long time completely messed up the tour with their heroics but something feels wrong with this sincaraz domination to me.

Sinner looks absolutely untouchable on the court unless he is up against Alcaraz. The latter has his share of poor outings on random occasions but those losses feel more "alcaraz had a bad day" than "his opponent played crazy well." This fares well because Sinner does indeed look like a machine. A hard-coded computer program which has only one specific goal: destroy his opponents. Alcaraz on the other is a more humane version who will do crazy stunts on court but will also lose on bad days. The fact that "human" Alcaraz is the only guy who can go toe-to-toe against a "computer machine" Sinner does give me a good chuckle.

Official Grandpa of the Tour

Novak Djokovic refuses to give way. While he was not close to a slam win at any point in time during 2025, Djokovic comfortably sailed past opposition to play all 4 semifinals becoming the oldest player to achieve the feat in the process. He won his 100th career title at the ATP Geneva Open 250 and closed out his season by winning the Athens ATP 250 against Lorenzo Musetti. The Italian would have qualified for the ATP Finals in Turin if he had won. Instead, Djokovic pulled out after the win letting Lorenzo enter anyways. This is the 2nd consecutive season Djokovic has withdrawn from the ATP Finals allowing the 9th ranked player in the race to have a shot instead.

Novak Djokovic refused to entertain any retirement questions this season. I think this is very healthy for the ATP Tour. Djokovic is the greatest player to ever play the sport and brings eyes to the game. He also remains the strongest challenger to sincaraz while the rest of the tour continues to search for answers. Having Djokovic on the tour ensures it is not sucked out of its breath as we wait for a new challenger uprising. Novak might win his 25th slam but that won't change anything in the books. He has nothing to win and nothing to prove. ATP Tour continues to gain so much from his presence and thus I hope certain people and journalists let him be and don't ask stupid questions in a futile quest for internet karma.

The Resurgence

Félix Auger-Aliassime or FAA as he is famously known in the tennis circuit, had a blast in the 2025 season. He won 50 matches across all tournaments and won 3 ATP titles. After winning just 1 in 2023 and going nil in the 2024 season, this year marked a true comeback for FAA. He qualified for the ATP Finals and reached the semis defeating higher seeded Zverev and Ben Shelton. He closed out the season finishing on a career-high ranking 5. FAA resurgence feels refreshing because I remember back in 2022 when he won 4 Indoor Hard titles in a single single and was being touted as the next-gen challenger. (Fun fact: 7 out of 8 titles FAA has won are won on Indoor Hardcourts.)

Alexander "Serious" Bublik

I wonder what were the odds of Bublik winning 4 titles and finishing the season ranked career-high 11th. Just a few seasons ago, Bublik was losing to qualifiers in the first round of slams. In just one season alone not only has he doubled his career titles won but has also completely shed his "unserious" tennis personality which had plagued his game since long. Bublik has emerged as a real challenger who is locked in and on his day can defeat the best players in the world. Out of all the good things the ATP tour gave its fans this season, Bublik was a real deal. To put it in perspective, Alexander Bublik was the only player to win a title across all surfaces this season. Tennis gods did not mess this one up.

The Vanishing of the 90s kids

Dominic Thiem. Daniil Medvedev. Out of hundreds and thousands of professional tennis players from the 1990s there are just two players in history to have ever won a grand slam title. It is a matter of great debate on how there exists a tennis generation which has been completely butchered by its peers. Some of the notable big names from this generation include Grigor Dimitrov (The Federer regen), Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Casper Ruud, Hubi Hurkacz, Andrey Rublev, and Matteo Berrettini. Out of these 7, 4 have played a grand slam final. Dimitrov's best grand slam result is a semi-final appearance at AO, Wimby, and the USO. Rublev has lost 10!! grand slam quarterfinals while Hurkacz has a lone semi-final appearance at Wimbledon in 2021.

I have great love for this tennis generation because they were up and coming just as I was growing up and taking up more interest in the sport. I remember back in 2017 watching and reading about Zverev and thinking we are finally at the juncture of a new tennis generation. Stefanos Tsitsipas along with Medvedev and Thiem made the list of players who were highly rated to replace the apparent dying of the light from the Big-4.

Yet 8 years have come and gone by and we have yet to see these men dominate the sport at any moment in time. There was brief a period of time during 2019-20 when Dominic Thiem made massive waves by winning the ATP Finals in 2 consecutive seasons and came within a close margin of toppling Djokovic's Australian Open dominance. The Austrian ultimately fulfilled his grand slam dream by defeating Zverev at the 2020 US Open final. The result remains a talking point due to the infamous Novak Djokovic default in the 4th round against Pablo Carreño Busta. He was on a 29-match winning streak and yet to lose a match in the season and was a massive favorite to win the title.

The only other 90s pro player to win a grand slam title is Daniil Medvedev who rolled Djokovic at the 2021 US Open final in straight sets. The win became significant because Djokovic was 1 win away from achieving a calendar slam. His 27-1 will probably remain unmatched since there's hardly ever an era in tennis where there is so much singular dominance.

Professional players from the 90s being reduced to grand slam runner-up fodder against both the 80s and the 00s generation is a crazy reality tennis fans like me have to suck up. With the next generation of players already up and running and more in the pipeline, every passing day diminishes whatever remains of the chance for these bunch to fulfill their dreams. I would absolutely love to see them win grand slam titles not just because for the sake of it but because I truly believe they have what it takes to triumph.

2026 Tennis Predictions

I am taking aim again. I will be here next year to see where these shots end up.

1. Novak Djokovic will win a grand slam title. Preferably the Australian Open. This is a pick I just had to make.
2. There will be a grand slam final event without featuring any of the sincaraz pair.
3. Taylor Fritz will win a grand slam title. Preferably the US Open.
4. Stefanos Tsitsipas will be back to top 10. This is a wild pick and I understand it. But the Greek has literally nothing to defend and everything to gain in the 2026 season.
5. Andrey Rublev will play a grand slam final. This pick comes from my bluesky discussion with a fellow tennis follower. Go Andrey!!

Apart from the usual picks, here are a few fun ones I am taking a random swing at.

Slam picks

1. AO: Jannik Sinner/Novak Djokovic
2. RG: Carlos Alcaraz/Alexander Zverev
3. Wimbledon: Jannik Sinner/Carlos Alcaraz
4. USO: Taylor Fritz/Ben Shelton

Title picks

1. Novak Djokovic to win 2+ titles.
2. Stefanos Tsitsipas to win a Masters 1000 title.
3. Nishesh Basavareddy to win multiple titles and finish top 30.
4. Holger Rune wins multiple titles along with another Masters 1000.
5. Alexander Zverev to win 3+ titles.

Following tennis is never boring as it is literally the only sport in the world apart from Football which never comes to a true halt. There's always an event taking place at any given moment in time around the world. ATP Tour looks to have completed its transitioning period which started at the beginning of the 2022 season and there's already a dominating pair making the rest of the lot look clueless. I wish to see tennis gods be more rewarding towards other faithful players who put in the hard work and strive for bigger success in the 2026 season.

Here's hoping for a bombastic 2026 tennis season!! Let's goooo.

Tagged: Sports