Australian Open key questions: Who will be the ‘disruptor’ for Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner? | Tennis News

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have shared the last eight Grand Slams between them so who can be the “disruptor” and break the monopoly?

After two years of ‘Sincaraz’ Sinner and Alcaraz’s reign we are waiting for a player to storm in and claim the big title.

Two big questions:

A) Will that happen?

B) If so, who is that person?

Logic suggests that it will be Sinner who wins the Australian Open simply because Jannik has such a good record in Melbourne and Alcaraz doesn’t, so it’s a big one where there is a clear historical difference between the two records and I can’t predict anything will happen to change that.

Alcaraz is the best player on clay, although that is one of the good signs of 2025 that Sinner had so often escaped that amazing Roland-Garros final, and could have held all four major tournaments at the same time if he had won another point in Paris.

I think Alcaraz might win Wimbledon this year and I think Sinner might win the US Open so we’re looking at a role reversal for 2025. Also, two Grand Slams each. Sinner, Alcaraz, Alcaraz and Soni in that order.

Who will be the disruptor?

Install the bug! If there is a slippage for one or both, who will benefit? I think it’s totally possible this year.

He’s doing very well to go through a 12-month season avoiding injury and one of those Grand Slam setbacks. It has happened! It happened to Roger Federer, to Rafael Nadal, but to a lesser extent to Novak Djokovic. We have seen Lukas Rosol and Sergiy Stakhovsky over the years create this disruptive moment at the Grand Slam.

To me, there’s one guy who stands out as a guy who might be the disruptor and his name is Alexander Bublik.

Bublik over the years has had this reputation as an actor, a performer, an underarm server, an extreme photographer, someone with so much natural talent but without the consistency or dedication to send him to the top of the game. But there was a change in 2025 that happened after a bad start to the season where he lost a lot of matches in the first few months but everything turned around in the Phoenix Challenger and the trip to Las Vegas that he talked about during the French Open.

And then in the second half of the year when we start the grass season, his was as good as anybody’s. With four titles, Bublik shows us that he can shed tears and when he cries, it’s hard to stop.

Bublik could meet Alcaraz in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, but could he be the one to upset?

I would say ‘yes’ – I think he could be that guy! Simply because likes of [Alexander] Zverev again [Taylor] Fritz is as good as they are – the closest opponents in terms of quality – they have that valuable muscle from previous meetings.

Bublik will go in fearless with this renewed confidence and recent history of beating Sinner in one of the best games of 2025 in Halle. I don’t think the performance got as much credit as it deserved. That was a very tough show from Bublik and he can do it again.

Predicting him as the player most likely to upset and beat Alcaraz or Sinner at a Grand Slam this year is as wild a prediction as any of Bublik’s tennis in recent years. I feel more confident supporting him in one game like that than I do one of the top eight contenders.

What about the other contestants?

As for other men, I see Taylor Fritz arguing again. He’s done really well the last few years and he’s such a great player now that I don’t see him changing. I don’t see Zverev breaking his duck.

I don’t see Djokovic winning another Grand Slam and for the rest, Felix Auger-Aliassime is very happy. If he wants and trusts his game, plays with instinct and speed, he can be the third best player in the world.

Do you believe in it that much? Do you believe in the way he should play to win continuously? If he can do that and have that mindset throughout the season he could be a big threat.

And then there are the Italians! [Lorenzo] Musetti had a great season on the clay court and some real career achievements are over. A countryman [Flavio] Cobolli is a talented young player who is on the rise. I expect him to have his best season to date.

About Raducanu…

Emma Raducanu is leading the way for the Brits, and as I said at the end of 2025, the fact that over two years she has gone from being outside the top 300 to the bottom 50 is amazing progress. If you started your career and you had that lead, you would get all the medals and you would be marked as a person to watch, so I see no reason why this trend should not continue for Raducanu.

It’s great that he’s got coach Francisco Roig on his side – he’s obviously a great guy to have in his corner and let’s hope the relationship stays strong, great things can still happen for him. You are so young! I hope it’s a full, exciting year for Raducanu.

Will Sabalenka be the favorite again?

The top two established have been [Aryna] Sabalenka and [Iga] Swiatek but it doesn’t sound like that coming this season because Swiatek lost in an unexpected way to his closest rivals, including [Coco] Gauff in the United Cup at the beginning of 2026 again [Amanda] You are not moving to Riyadh.

These are troubling results for Swiatek, who has long been a consistent player on the WTA Tour.

He was a back-to-back undefeated player and now it feels like that has changed, creating an interesting power tie because Sabalenka has a strong command at the top of the rankings.

Sabalenka started the season strong with another title [in Brisbane] so he will be a strong, strong favorite going into the Australian Open.

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