All to know about the 2025 Australian Open: Schedule, seeds, prize money

After a little interruption successful the tennis calendar, the world’s apical stars person descended upon Australia arsenic the year’s archetypal Grand Slam gets nether mode successful Melbourne.

Amid the adjacent procreation of tennis icons, including defending champion Jannik Sinner and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, all-time large Novak Djokovic volition person his eyes acceptable connected a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam rubric astatine his favourite hunting ground.

In the women’s draw, Aryna Sabalenka volition look to proceed her blessed streak successful Australia but volition look stiff contention from Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Qinwen Zheng.

Here’s everything you request to cognize astir the Australian Open 2025:

When does the Australian Open 2025 main circular begin?

After six days of qualifying circular action, the main gully of the tourney volition statesman connected Sunday, January 12.

When are the Australian Open 2025 finals?

Men’s singles: Sunday, January 26 astatine 7:30pm (08:30 GMT)

Women’s singles: Saturday, January 25 astatine 7:30pm (08:30 GMT)

Men’s doubles: Saturday, January 25 (after women’s singles final)

Mixed doubles: Saturday, January 25 (after men’s doubles final)

Women’s doubles: Sunday, January 26 (after men’s singles final)

Where is the venue of the Australian Open?

The tourney volition beryllium played connected the blue-coloured hard courts astatine Melbourne Park successful Melbourne, Australia.

The 3 main courts are the Rod Laver Arena, with a capableness of 15,000, the John Cairn Arena (10,500) and the Margaret Court Arena (7,500).

How are the players drawn successful the tournament?

As successful different Grand Slams, the apical 32 players successful the ATP and WTA rankings participate the main gully automatically and are seeded to guarantee that they don’t conscionable successful the earlier rounds of the tournament.

Most of the remaining entrants participate the main circular aft playing qualifying rounds, portion immoderate – section players and erstwhile large winners who person dropped successful rankings – are handed chaotic paper entries from tourney organisers.

Who are the defending champions of the Australian Open?

Men’s singles: Jannik Sinner (Italy)

Women’s singles: Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus)

Men’s doubles: Rohan Bopanna (India) and Mathew Ebden (Australia)

Women’s doubles: Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) and Elise Mertens (Belgium)

Mixed doubles: Hsieh Su-wei (Taiwan) and Jan Zieliński (Poland)

Aryna Sabalenka won her 2nd consecutive Australian Open women’s singles rubric successful 2024 [File: Issei Kato/Reuters]

Who are the apical seeds?

Men’s singles (top 10):

1. Jannik Sinner (Italy)
2. Alexander Zverev (Germany)
3. Carlos Alcaraz (Spain)
4. Taylor Fritz (USA)
5. Daniil Medvedev (Russia/no flag)
6. Casper Ruud (Norway)
7. Novak Djokovic (Serbia)
8. Alex de Minaur (Australia)
9. Andrey Rublev (Russia/no flag)
10. Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria)

Women’s singles (top 10):

1. Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus/no flag)
2. Iga Swiatek (Poland)
3. Coco Gauff (USA)
4. Jasmine Paolini (Italy)
5. Qinwen Zheng (China)
6. Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan)
7. Jessica Pegula (USA)
8. Emma Navarro (USA)
9. Daria Kasatkina (Russia/no flag)
10. Danielle Collins (USA)

Who are the favourites to triumph the Australian Open 2025?

Men’s singles:

Djokovic: Despite failing to triumph a Grand Slam successful 2024 and reaching the 25th singles rubric record, the 37-year-old won the Olympic gold. The Serb tin ne'er beryllium written disconnected successful Australia, wherever helium has enjoyed tremendous occurrence and volition present beryllium coached by longtime rival Andy Murray.

Should helium triumph successful Melbourne, it volition beryllium his 100th vocation title, conscionable the 3rd antheral successful the Open epoch to scope the milestone down Jimmy Connors (109) and Roger Federer (103).

Sinner: The Italian won his maiden Grand Slam rubric successful Australia past twelvemonth and went connected to found himself arsenic the undisputed satellite fig 1 by winning 8 titles successful 2024, starring Italy to a palmy defence of the Davis Cup.

However, the 23-year-old’s play was rocked by doping accusations that helium denies.

Sinner went done 2024 without a decision successful consecutive sets, becoming the archetypal subordinate since Federer successful 2005 to bash so, and volition look to statesman 2025 successful a akin manner down under.

Alcaraz: Still conscionable 21, the Spaniard already owns 4 Grand Slam titles since bursting connected the country with triumph astatine the US Open successful 2022, but is yet to spell beyond the quarterfinals successful Melbourne connected his 3 erstwhile visits, crashing successful the past 8 successful 2024 to Alexander Zverev.

Already the youngest antheral to assertion majors connected each 3 surfaces – clay, hard and writer – helium volition surpass compatriot Rafael Nadal arsenic the youngest to implicit a vocation Grand Slam should helium triumph successful Australia.

Alcaraz, who has ne'er mislaid a Grand Slam final, finished an injury-marred 2024 arsenic the satellite fig 3 aft winning 4 titles to instrumentality his vocation tally to 16.

Novak Djokovic has won 10 Australian Open men’s singles titles [File: Jaimi Joy/Reuters]

Women’s singles:

Sabalenka: Gunning for her 3rd consecutive Australian Open crown, the Belarusian is the pistillate to bushed aft the champion play of her vocation successful 2024, capped by being named WTA Player of the Year past month.

Sabalenka volition beryllium the archetypal pistillate to triumph the Australian Open 3 years successful a enactment since Martina Hingis successful 1999 should she spell each the way, and she showed she was successful the temper with a romp to the trophy astatine the season-opening Brisbane International, dropping lone 1 set.

The triumph continued the 26-year-old’s superb signifier from 2024 wherever she reached 7 finals and won 4 tournaments.

Swiatek: The satellite fig 2 is simply a five-time large champion but she has ne'er shone astatine Melbourne Park, lone progressing beyond the 4th circular successful 2022.

The Pole began her 2025 run with 4 consecutive singles wins but has been competing aft serving a one-month doping suspension, owed to investigating affirmative for a banned substance she said came from a contaminated supplement.

Swiatek has played and won successful each 5 of her Grand Slam finals, 4 of them astatine the French Open.

Gauff: The 20-year-old has bounced backmost impressively from parting with manager Brad Gilbert to triumph the WTA 1000 successful Beijing and the WTA Tour Finals to extremity 2024.

The satellite fig 3 again looked successful premier signifier arsenic she inspired the US to triumph implicit Poland successful the mixed-teams lawsuit of the United Cup, and her assurance is precocious heading into Melbourne.

The American volition look to get her 2nd Grand Slam rubric nether her loop successful Melbourne.

Queens coming for the Melbourne crown 👑 pic.twitter.com/XnmfdZlixT

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 8, 2025

What’s the prize money?

The full prize wealth is $59.8m, a 12 percent summation from 2024.

The US Open volition manus retired a $2.16m reward for singles champions and Men’s and women’s doubles champion teams volition person $502,000.

The breakdown successful the singles class (men and women) is:

Champions: $2.16m
Runners-up: $1.17m
Semifinalists: $0.68m
Quarterfinalists: $412,242
Round of 16: $260,363
Third round: $179,759
Second round: $123,974
First round: $81,822

Where to watch, travel and watercourse the Australian Open tennis Grand Slam?

Al Jazeera volition supply unrecorded substance and photograph sum of the men’s and women’s singles finals.

The authoritative broadcasters of the Australian Open are:

• Africa: beIN Sports and SuperSport.
• Europe: Eurosport, SRG SSR.
• Asia Pacific & Oceania: ESPN, Tennis Channel, beIN Sports, CCTV, iQIYI, GDTV, WOWOW, Nine, Stan Sport, Digicel, CJ ENM, TDM, ESPN International, SKY, Sportcast and K-Plus.
• India & subcontinent: Sony Sports Network.
• Latin America & Caribbean: ESPN International.
• Middle East: beIN Sports.
• North America: ESPN, TSN, RDS and Tennis Channel.
• Central Asia: Sony Sports Network and Eurosport.