By U.B. Acharya

It is my usual practice to cover the entire year’s tennis news in a season-ending review. Since I did not write a review last year, this year’s review covers both 2024 and 2025.

During the last year and this year, eight Major championships (aka Grand Slam Events) were held. It is amazing that ALL THE EIGHT MAJORS were shared equally between two young players namely, Carlos Alcaraz (22 years) and Jannik Sinner (24 years). Regarding runners-up, both Alexander Zverev and Sinner had two each, and Daniil Medvedev, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Alcaraz had one each.

One interesting aspect of this year’s championships is that 38-year-old Djokovic reached semi-finals in all four Majors losing to one of these two youngsters in three occasions. Another interesting aspect is that Alcaraz and Sinner met in the last three finals, Alcaraz winning two of them. In French Open, having won the first two sets, Sinner had multiple match points and yet lost to Alcaraz in five sets. This match with five hours and 29 minutes long created a new record as the longest French Open Finals.

At Wimbledon Finals, Alcaraz was the defending champion having won the previous two years but lost to Sinner in four sets. Thus, Sinner avenged his tragic loss at the French Open Finals. At the US Open, Sinner was the defending Champion but Alcaraz beat him in four sets. Watching the replays of these two finals, I felt that these two matches did not reach the high drama like some of the earlier finals between the great players like Bjorn Borg Vs John McEnroe or Roger Federer Vs Rafael Nadal.

Now regarding the year-ending ATP Finals which many experts believe as the fifth Major, Sinner won his first year-ending title defeating Fritz in 2024. 2025 Finals was an outstanding match, Sinner winning in straight sets. Thus these two players ended two victories each in the four finals they have played.

As tennis fans know, tennis in Olympics once in four years is an important event in the tennis calendar. The 2024 event was held on clay courts of Roland Garros in Paris immediately after the Wimbledon. Djokovic, having been the top seed from 2012 to 2020, however never managed to win the gold medal in his previous four attempts. So, he was bent on winning in 2024 in spite of tough opposition from the younger players. Fortunately for him, Sinner dropped out due to medical reasons (as it is a long controversial story, we shall not go into the details of this episode). Djokovic met Alcaraz in the title bout and won in straight sets at 7-6, 7-6. According to him, it was his greatest triumph.

In this connection, please note that a tennis player can win 16 categories of titles. These are four Majors, nine Masters 1000 titles, one each of Year-ending ATP title, Olympics gold medal and World No. 1 ranking. Novak Djokovic is the ONLY player who has tick marked all these 16 boxes. No other tennis champion has won more than 14 such titles! It is indeed a remarkable achievement for Djokovic.

Now let me look at the Masters 1000 tournaments. There are nine such tournaments in a year thus making a total of 18 tournaments in two years. Of these, Alcaraz and Sinner won four times each and Zverev twice. The remaining were won one each by Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE), Andrey Rublev (RUS), Alexei Popyrin (AUS), Jack Draper (UK), Jakub Mensik (CRO), Casper Ruud (NOR), Ben Shelton (USA) and Valentin Vacherot (FRA). Of these, last six players won their Masters 1000 titles for the first time.

In addition, nearly a thousand ATP 500, ATP 250, ATP Challengers and ITF Features tournaments are held all over the world throughout the year and we shall not go into the results of these. Suffice is to say that a promising young player starts in these tournaments and if he or she does well in these tournaments, gains ATP points and then qualifies for the bigger tournaments. Usually, their first victory in ATP 250 tournament becomes their stepping stone for more victories.

The great Roger has indicated that he would like to see some newer players challenging these two present champions. Djokovic has also commented in a humorous tone that when Federer and Nadal were winning all the Majors between 2005 and 2010, a Djoker came along to topple the apple cart. He would also like to see a similar situation. Actually, I have four young players in mind. First one is 23-year-old Draper who has won one Masters 1000 in 2025. Similarly, Shelton (also 23 years of age) and Mensik, just 20 years old, have also won one Masters 1000 titles this year. The fourth player is a 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca who won his first ATP 500 title this year. Only time will tell whether they will rise to the occasion.