The new tennis season is upon us and the first grand slam of the year – the Australian Open – is about to get under way.
We have looked back at 10 years’ worth of data from the ATP and WTA Tours to identify the key tennis players to watch in 2023.
Who will win the Australian Open?
Based on data from the past decade, the Australian Open is one of the easier grand slams to predict.
It comes very early in the year, with the majority of players having plenty of time to prepare in the off-season.
As a result, the leading players tend to do well – eight of the past 10 men’s and women’s champions have been ranked in the top five.
Similarly, recent results suggest that top players are less susceptible to an early exit compared with the other three grand slams.
Only 14 players ranked between one and 10 at the start of the tournament have lost in the first round since 2013, the most recent being John Isner and Daria Kasatkina in 2019.
Novak Djokovic – the most successful player in Australian Open history – will start the tournament as favourite once again. The 35-year-old has an impressive 94 per cent win rate here over the past 10 years.
On the women’s side, Victoria Azarenka – champion in 2012 and 2013 but seeded 25th this year – has the best record across the last decade.
World number one Iga Swiatek made the semi-finals in 2021 and has a respectable win rate in Australia of 75 per cent.
Djokovic’s age is unlikely to hold him back. Rafael Nadal’s history-making triumph in 2022 at the age of 35 was not unprecedented, with his great friend and rival Roger Federer having won aged 35 and 36 in 2017 and 2018.
The timing of the tournament means that players are fresh and unburdened by the physical and mental toll of regular competition.
This is underlined by the average age of male grand slam winners since 2013, which is oldest at the Australian Open (scheduled at the start of the year) and youngest at the US Open (at the end).
Likewise, older women’s players have enjoyed plenty of success in Melbourne.
Serena Williams lifted the trophy aged 33 and 35 in 2015 and 2017, with the latter triumph proving to be her last at one of the four majors.
Who could dominate in 2023?
2022 was a year of change on the ATP and WTA Tours.
On the men’s side, 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz lifted his maiden major at the US Open and ascended to world number one in the process.
Alcaraz was the third first-time grand slam winner in the past nine completed events – there were just two in 30 tournaments before that.
That said, Djokovic ended 2022 with the highest win percentage in the biggest ATP tournaments, despite missing a number of events in the United States and Australia due to his vaccination status.
The Serb won 87 per cent of matches across Masters 1000 events, the ATP Finals and the grand slams.
However, Djokovic was usurped as the most dominant player across both tours by Swiatek, who won 48 of her 53 matches at top-tier tournaments
The Polish 21-year-old is threatening to dominate the women’s game, having become the first player to win multiple grand slams in the same calendar year since Angelique Kerber in 2016.
She has twice as many ranking points as her nearest challenger – Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur.
Who can string results together?
Claiming one of the game’s biggest prizes requires six to seven match wins in a row, which is difficult to accomplish given the level of competition on both tours.
Nadal managed the longest winning streak among ATP players in 2022, starting the year with 20 successive victories.
Canadian 22-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime could be one to watch in 2023, having finished last year in fine form, including a 16-match unbeaten run.
Once again, however, Swiatek outperformed everyone else with a staggering 37-match winning run between the Qatar Open and a third-round loss at Wimbledon.
The Pole’s dominant form saw her capture six titles (Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Roland Garros) in just over three months.
Who has the edge over their rivals?
Winning the important events also means beating the best players in the world.
Since 2020, only 17 players across the ATP and WTA Tours have a winning record against top-10 opponents in the biggest tournaments.
Djokovic and Nadal unsurprisingly feature in the men’s list, as does Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, who often saves his best tennis for the big stage.
Swiatek leads the WTA Tour in head-to-heads against the top 10 since 2020.
Caroline Garcia and Maria Sakkari are the only other players in the current top 10 with winning records.
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