Cleaning out the notes app and notebook, wrapping up a rollicking 2025 Australian Open …

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1. Your women’s singles champion, Madison Keys, totally rewrote her career in 14 days. She went from a hard-hitting, well-liked, oft-injured slugger to a major winner (and, dare we suggest, likely Hall of Famer?). Note, too, the quality of her run. She beat four top-10 opponents, including No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 2 Iga Świątek, on the way to glory.

2. Deploying his bloodless efficiency and his can’t-hit-through-him and can’t-hit-around-him tennis, Italy’s Jannik Sinner defended his Australian Open title. He has won each of the past three hard court majors. His next big match, though, will come before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in April. A favorable ruling and he’ll be the top seed at Roland Garros. An unfavorable ruling and he may have played his last major of 2025. 

3. Alexander Zverev did himself proud, living up to his No. 2 seeding and reaching the final. But for the third major final, he again failed to “come good,” as the Aussies say. He’s hardly alone, but he had few answers to the questions posed by Sinner. During the final we discussed on X: Is Zverev the best player never to have won a major? Not currently. But … ever?

4. Two-time defending champ Sabalenka nearly won a third. She said it best herself: “I’m one who knows that after tough losses, there are good wins.” She is a fascinating psychological study. Name another athlete who deftly—if delicately—marries ferocity with humor and levity.

5. In a sort of parable for the aging athlete, Novak Djokovic scored a rousing win over Carlos Alcaraz in one of the tournament’s most stirring matches. He then retired against Zverev after an 80-minute set, ending his event, forestalling a 25th major and handing Andy Murray his first loss as a coach. Glass half-empty: Djokovic has gone more than a year without a major title. He will be 38 at Roland Garros and time seems to be doing its dance. (The scan he shared is no joke.) Glass half-full: For someone who thrives on adverse situations and outwitting time and other forces thought to be immutable, another triumph in Paris is shaping up nicely for Djokovic.

6. What an event for Paula Badosa. Last year’s WTA Comeback Player of the Year continues her resurgence, reaching her first major semifinal before running into the Sabalenka blowtorch.

7. Świątek lost just 14 games in the first five rounds, as thoroughly dominant as a magnifying glass versus an ant. Then, she lost 18 games in her classic semifinal defeat to Keys. It was a stinging defeat, but there are plenty of positives for Świątek. While there was little talk about the doping controversy, there were renewed questions about her sportsmanship. This needs to stop.

8. Ben Shelton entered the tournament at 6’ 4” and left at 6’ 4”. Still, there was a sense this event marked a growth spurt. His power now yoked with strategy and big-point poise, he reached another major semifinal and should be thrilled by his tournament. 

9. In doubles, Wimbledon champs Taylor Townsend and Kateřina Siniaková took out Su-Wei Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko in a wild final. Symmetry: In the men’s final, Wimbledon champs Henry Patten and Harri Heliövaara took another major, beating Andrea Vavassori and Simone Bolelli.

10. In the all-Aussie mixed final, Olivia Gadecki and John Peers beat Kim Birrell and John-Patrick Smith. 

11. Alcaraz’s quest for the Career Slam continues. His loss to Djokovic in the quarterfinals? There is no need to panic, but that was a disappointingly vacant performance. All gas, no break. Too many loose errors. And he failed to pick up Djokovic’s wide second serve. He lost to a player barely in the top 100 at the previous major. In this one, he lost to a 10-time champ. There is no shame here. But a reminder that there are still aspects of tennis—including a level of chew-on-barbed-wire toughness—he has yet to master. Adjacent to that …

12. There is so much to like and admire about Coco Gauff—and tennis only accounts for one column. But what a strange tournament for her. She won her first nine matches in Australia and, in the eyes of many, including tournament director Craig Tiley, was the favorite to win the title. Then, in the quarterfinals, her forehand went back in the breakdown lane—28 errors in two sets on that side alone—and she fell (not crushingly, but disappointingly) to Badosa. Cruel sport, this one.

13. In the juniors, Henry Bernet—a Swiss phenom with a one-handed backhand—imagine that, think any comparisons are forthcoming?—won the boys’ title, beating American Bill Willwerth in the final. In the girls’ final, Wakana Sonobe became the first Japanese winner in this event beating Kristina Penickova, a 15-year-old American. The Penickova twins (Annika) are for real—they won the doubles. As ever, Colette Lewis over at ZooTennis has you covered. And the wheelchair event was, again, asuccess. Someone needs to make this documentary already, especially on the Dutch dominance.

14. It was a rough event for the late-20s generation. Daniil Medvedev (Learner Tien), Casper Ruud (Jakub Menšík), Andrey Rublev (João Fonseca) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (Alex Michelsen) all went out to players yet to reach majoritarian age (under 21). Some were bad matchups. Some results came with extenuating circumstances. Fonseca is an Alcaraz-level disruptive talent. Still, these guys came of age when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic were riding high. Now, they are looking over their shoulders at the kids.

15. The second Monday brought the end of the Gaël Monfils run. At age 38, the good-vibes magnet won an event coming in and then reached the round of 16, beating Taylor Fritz in the process. Hot take: Aging has done him wonders. Apart from the accumulated wisdom, the loss of a step or a bit of flexibility has narrowed his battery of options and encouraged him to win with effective tennis, not showstopping tennis. Shots like this have given way to point-prolonging defense, effective serving-and-volleying and strategic play.

16. Tax Day came early for several players. That is, you play long matches in the first week and withhold nothing … but eventually, the bill comes due. Jack Draper, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Holger Rune and Tien were among the players who survived and advanced in Week 1—each winning at least one five-setter, some winning three, and then having few reserves in the round of 16. 

17. Both Tien and his pal Michelsen,19 and 20 respectively, thundered into the round of 16. They then hit a wall. But holy heck, what a tournament for both. Mileage may vary for both, but they will be in main draws (Michelsen may well be seeded)—and off they go on the pro journey.

18. More Eva Lys, please. The German lucky loser won three matches, fell handily to Świątek and revealed herself to be a fine player and a strikingly pleasant person. 

19. Naomi Osaka leaves this event: A) encouraged that she won two quality matches, including a three-set classic against Karolína Muchová. B) Discouraged that her body let her down again and that as a four-time major champ, she continues to struggle to get to the middle weekend at majors.

20. A tennis rivalry distilled to a sentence: Alcaraz leans forward and Sinner leans back.

21. We said the same at the U.S. Open … deep inside the tennis corridors, among Hall of Famers and executives, there is a canyon of divide on L’Affaire Sinner. There are those who agree with Martina Navratilova, and assert that he is being railroaded by overzealous enforcement. And then there are those who think he skated and his explanation/alibi is riddled with holes. (Wait what? The trainer used clostebol, wrapped in packaging that notes it is a banned substance—to treat a cut and then gave the athlete an ungloved massage?) Note, though, that the WADA appeal is not about the facts or Sinner’s intent. It is about whether the code was properly applied, taking the facts as a given.

22. Before the event, the players were given a welcome email that included instructions on scheduling requests. Want to be receptive to players—as this tournament, strenuously, does? Fine. But it leads to the slipperiest of slopes and, too often, powerful players (and their agents/coaches) get accommodated to the point of unfairness. How, for instance, did Rune play a third-round match that went five sets and ended after midnight only to play Sinner in the fourth as the second match on court? (And how did Sinner suffer in the heat, leave the court and avail himself of air conditioning without a penalty?)

23. Before the tournament each player is given a QR code which they can use to communicate with the tournament and lodge complaints and suggestions. I suspect the event would have preferred Shelton used this resource and vented privately, rather than call out post-match interviews in a press conference. But good on him, as the Aussies say. Credit Shelton for coming with the receipts and citing specific grievances. And his substance was strong: No doubt there is room for improvement here. There are a lot of angles to this. Here’s one: Interviewing is (cliché) not brain surgery or rocket science or returning a lefty kick serve. But it is a skill. Handing a mic to someone untrained and telling them to stand courtside and fire off some questions? Not a recipe for success. A quick primer of do’s and don’ts—leave your narcissism at home, the word “I” should not be used, this is not the time for risky and risque jokes, no yes/no questions, no “how does it feel” and no “how excited/gratified/pleased/satisfied” are you?—would be a start.

24. I hope this scans more as more anthropology than gossip, but for a sport that is so intense, self-focused and itinerant, it stands to reason that there will be romantic coupling between pros. This includes Monfils and Elina Svitolina, newly engaged Alex de Minaur and Katie Boulter, Tsitsipas and Badosa and newlyweds Keys and Bjorn Fratangelo. One of you asked about Alexander Shevchenko and Anastasia Potapova. It turns out they divorced in the offseason. Here, Shevchenko drew Alcaraz in the first round. Potapova fell to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

25. Here we are, in late January and if anyone hits a better shot than Lorenzo Sonego this entire year (note the score as well), my name is Slobodan Živojinović.

26. Elena Rybakina arrived in Melbourne shrouded in mystery and controversy. Not unlike Murray’s coaching debut, her coaching status fell under the stories-one-might-have-suspected-would-be-a-bigger-story-than-it-was category. To the surprise of no one, Goran Ivanišević has tiptoed out of this dynamic. The next phase in the saga, presumably, is the WTA announcing the findings from its complaint investigation and confirming that the provisional suspension of Rybakina’s former coach, Stefano Vukov, will be lifted or hardened into discipline. (Aside: While some measure of privacy is essential to the process—and fair for the accused—one wonders how many coaches are also serving provisional suspensions?) As for Ryabkina’s tennis, she won three matches and then lost a battle to Keys.

27. Speaking of Rybakina … in trying to see what the WTA might be empowered (and disempowered) to do in this regrettable scenario, I looked over the tour’s 2025 Safeguarding Code, basically a manual drafted to protect athletes’ safety. In the process, I came across a line about “locker room best practices” that struck me. “No persons who were born or identify as male will be permitted in WTA locker rooms.” The WTA hasn’t had much occasion to be drawn into the culture wars regarding transgender sports issues. But this small bit of policy seems to offer an indication of where the tour might stand when/if this issue arises.   

28. For a country that hosts a major—and reaps the financial benefits—should Australia have a women’s player in the top 100? It didn’t at the start of the year. By contrast, how about Antipodean New Zealand? Lulu Sun is a proper top-50 player. Erin Routliffe entered the event ranked as a No. 2 doubles player. Michael Venus is a fine doubles player. Cam Norrie has New Zealand extraction. (All played college tennis.) Go Kiwis!

29. Speaking of Aussies, you know how when you were a kid, you could criticize your parents or siblings, but if someone else did, it made for fighting words? It’s the same in tennis, which may be a decidedly dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. Many of us—myself included—have sometimes taken issue with Nick Kyrgios. But I found myself closing ranks and defending Kyrgios when this Australian Rules footballer popped off. For starters, comparing an individual sport played globally to a team sport played only in one country is folly. He may be a chaos actor, but he’s OUR chaos actor. Leave him alone!

As long as we are here, I sense we’re all a bit Kyrgiosed out. But I will repeat what we wrote last week. “He is misplaced in thinking that he is the tennis outcast and that the school administrators and the goody-goody honor students want to see him expelled. No one wants to see him leave the sport. Many wish he would be more judicious on social media. Fine. But virtually nobody thinks the sport is better without him. And everyone wishes for his full health.”

30. More Aussie talk? Jelena Dokic does a lovely job on TV, especially with courtside interviews.

31. Every match tells a story. Round 1: Kei Nishikori vs. Thiago Monteiro, the Brazilian lefty qualifier. Monteiro wins the first two sets and holds a match point. He hits a lob that misses by a narrow distance. Nishikori exhales and wins the game, then the third set, the next two and, eventually, the match. Did we mention the sadistic cruelty of this sport?

32. Five players who lost in Week 1 but impressed nonetheless: the powerful Finn Otto Virtanen, Clara Tauson of Denmark (who’s been around, but has improved her movement), 17-year-old Iva Jovic, 19-year-old qualifier Martin Landaluce and Jacob Fearnley of the U.K., a college player this time last year.

33. From the boulevard of broken dreams that is the qualies draw. Those who failed to make it out include Richard Gasquet (and RIP to his one-hander), Dan Evans, Chris Eubanks and Bernard Tomic (who might have bigger issues than a triple-digit ranking). Tough sport, this one.

34. Speaking of qualies, at every major we bang on about the moral rot that is the wild card game. If, say, Caroline Wozniacki wanted to come back, absolutely, there should be a mechanism for getting her in the draw. But too often these valuable slots go to undeserving players who simply have the good fortune of hailing from the country holding the event. Wouldn’t it have been logical, good business, and—get this—good for the sport to give a spot to Fonseca, the Brazilian teenager who generated much buzz with his Next Gen title? (Why even have the Next Gen event if you can’t showcase the winner?)

35. This is intended as a value-neutral statement. But how quickly does this sport normalize controversy? The robots are taking over and displacing workers! Now, it almost seems quaint that human beings—and their human error—once made instantaneous line calls. Tennis is engaged in sportswashing! Now, we refer to Riyadh as if it’s another tour stop, on par with Rome, Madrid and Charleston. A 10-point tiebreak in decisive sets is a crap-shoot cop-out. In retrospect, it was wise and helpful for fans that the four majors are standardized in how they decide matches. On-court coaching will change the essence of tennis and its one-on-one appeal. Now we have coaches literally sitting on the court, consulting data and communicating with players between points.

36. Too often numbers come whizzing by without pause or context. In this event, Djokovic set a record by winning his 380th match at a major. Wait, what? First, there are players in the Hall of Fame who didn’t win that many matches in their entire careers. Second, if, in one year, a superstar player makes, say, a semifinal, final and wins two titles, that’s 25 wins. Imagine putting up a year of that quality more than 15(!) times.

37. One of the great modern rivalries: Tennis Australia vs. the ATP in the battle for the calendar (i.e. the slot on the schedule that will make room for Saudi Arabia and its suitcase of cash.) But with the scant offseason, more players are creating their own vacation, and—sometimes at no detriment to their results—bailing on the pre-Australian Open weeks entirely. Sinner, Medvedev and Alcaraz didn’t play a tune-up event.

38. Back by popular demand, tennis’s spin on The New York Times Connections: Keys, Robyn, Suková, Krajicek. (Answer below)

39. The Czech Republic—Czechia—is the Italy of 2025. And Belarus has a population of 9.1 million in a world of eight billion people. It nearly furnished us with five Australian Open women’s champions since 2012.

40. Pavlyuchenkova reached another quarterfinal. She’s long been a reliably good quote and thoughtful interview. Here she is in Bounces, Ben Rothenberg’s fine Substack, talking about what she is looking for in a coach. “He has to be a mentor. He has to be a good organizer. He needs to be a psychologist, knowing what exactly to say in which moment—this is very difficult and not many can do it because sometimes they get very emotional, also; they would say some stupid s— during the match in the wrong moment, and then you are completely off after that.”

41. No, college tennis players are not making millions the way college football players are (thanks, sometimes, to the largesse of the Indian Wells owner!) but we hear again and again about how NIL is wreaking havoc on (and in) tennis recruiting. Duke, for instance, is blessed with a sizable NIL satchel and has used it to sway recruits and transfers. Some programs (socialism!) split the NIL haul so every player gets the same amount and, ideally, there is peace in the locker room. (In some cases, NIL has totally eroded the culture of the program.) Other programs have Player X making, say, $40,000 and their doubles partner making nothing. A new world, this. Speaking of money …

42. Do we talk enough about players investing in their careers? At this event, I heard multiple stories of players deciding whether to splurge and fly private from tune-up events to Melbourne, or fly commercial but risk waiting around or cancellation. Of players debating between flying economy and, at five times the price and three times the legroom, flying business. Of splitting a physio with another player, or flying solo. It probably bears remembering that tennis players—as independent contractors—spend time acting like other small business owners. That is, they weigh expenses, assess financial risk and hope the return on investment justifies decisions. More money (more problems) talk …

43. About that dollar … your periodic reminder that exchange rates matter. One Aussie dollar is hovering around 0.61 against the U.S. dollar and 0.6 against the Euro. So, for most of the field, that $AU 3.5 million winner’s check looks a bit soft (at least compared to other majors). And it looks like an arbitrage opportunity.

44. Who was today years old (as the kids say) when they learned that, for nearly a year now, there has been no electronic let call? (Cue Routliffe. And she is right.) The chair umpire—with plenty else to do—now shoulders the additional task of deciding if a 130 mph serve clips the tape. There is no “let” in junior tennis, college tennis and some pro matches. No one is complaining. The obvious solution: Eliminate the let and just play it out, (as you would, if the same scenario occurred on the return and throughout the point). 

45. Interesting times for the Nike tennis division, at least on the men’s side. Sinner and Alcaraz are locked up, so, that’s a win. But what does Nike—an American company with America representing the biggest region in terms of the company’s gross sales—do about Americans? Fritz left for Hugo Boss. Shelton is ON brand. Frances Tiafoe is now with Lululemon. Sebastian Korda is the big bet? And Gauff didn’t sign on the women’s side. It’s just strange to see the company of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, so marginalized.

46. These past few weeks reinforced just how centrally Los Angeles figures in the tennis tapestry. So many players—and not just Americans—have spent significant time there. The fires cut particularly deep and, specifically in Week 1, put a ceiling on the tennis joy. Speaking of Los Angeles tennis, here’s a story to follow: Will Olympic tennis be held at the embattled Carson facility as planned? (I’m telling you: Night matches at Indian Wells is the play here.)

47. The derby is for agents to sign Fonseca, pegged by virtually everyone in the sport as a force for years to come. One wrinkle: Fonseca comes from an affluent family, has financial backing and, without having signed as a junior, holds real leverage here. And, as long as we are here, who else is looking forward to Fonseca and the Brazilian crowds at the Miami Open? 

48. How to say you’re old, without saying you’re old … anyone else confused why the Australian Open would broadcast avatars playing matches? It seems to be an end-run around a rights issue. 

49. The Australian Open always fares well in the Zagat Guide style reviews (kids, look that up), especially the amenities category. The players got a $350 per diem on top of a travel voucher that could go as high as $6,000 (Aussie dollar). There were player sleep pods this year. The “1 Point Slam” the weekend before the event drew rave reviews. Australia is always going to have some hurdles. For most players, it’s a long way from home. The Aussie dollar doesn’t exactly have the muscle of Alcaraz. Climate change has been—and, more crucially, will be—the nemesis of this event. But the majors are a Big Four, not a Big Three plus one.

50. Thanks for your listening, watching and commenting on Served and the “Quick Served” daily episodes. And Steve Weissman, Martina Navratilova, Lindsay Davenport, Prakash Amritraj and I had a fun time doing the two-hour pregame shows for Tennis Channel. The cut-and-paste from every major: Your comments, complaints, suggestions, tips, fashion suggestions, etc. are read, considered and appreciated. 

Connections answer: All share names with a U.S. state capital (Madison, Montgomery, Helena, Austin.) 

Hang in there, Pam Shriver. 

It’s always fun nerding out on tennis with you all. Back to the day job, but see you soon.