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The Australian Open heralds the start of the Grand Slam season in tennis — and Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are odds-on favourites to begin 2025 with a tournament victory.
According to BetMGM online sportsbook, world No. 1 Sinner has emerged as the +115 favourite to capture the men’s title. The tournament’s defending champion, Sinner arrives in Melbourne at the top of his game but under a cloud of intrigue. The tennis world is abuzz over the possibility that Sinner could soon face a lengthy ban from the sport relating to two failed drug tests in 2024.
Though Sinner has acknowledged that the testing results have taken an emotional toll, the Italian star won eight titles last year and lost only six of the 79 matches in which he played. Bettors appear confident that he’ll be able to continue this run of good form, despite the distractions.
Tennis legend Novak Djokovic opened as the favourite to win his 25th Slam but has since fallen to the +550 third choice at BetMGM. Djokovic recently lost in the opening round of a prep tournament in Brisbane. He is coming off a 2024 season in which he failed to win a major for the first time since 2017.
Carlos Alcaraz is now the second choice of bettors at +350. Alcaraz, the former world No. 1, is chasing his fifth major at the age of 21. A victory in Melbourne would also give him the career Grand Slam.
In all, almost two-thirds of the money wagered at BetMGM on the men’s Australian Open winner has been placed on Sinner.
On the women’s side, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek are seen by bettors as the players most likely to challenge Sabalenka (+225), who won Australian Open titles in 2023 and 2024. It will be a tall task. The 26-year-old Belarusian is playing the best tennis of her career and is coming off a 2024 season in which she won 18 of 19 Grand Slam matches. It’s the first time she’s been the top seed in a major tournament.
Swiatek, the former world No. 1 now in pursuit of her sixth Grand Slam, is the +450 third choice at BetMGM. She is coming off a one-month suspension relating to the use of a banned substance that she said came from a contaminated non-prescription medication. Bettors are showing some skepticism that she’ll be able to regain the needed form.
Gauff, the 2023 U.S. Open champion, is currently listed as the +400 second choice to win the Australian Open. She recently defeated Swiatek and has seen improvements in her game since switching up her coaching staff last fall. However, the draw sets up for Gauff to face Sabalenka in the semifinals, which means the U.S. star will potentially need to take down the current and former world No. 1s to win the title.
Meanwhile, the top-seeded Canadians in the tournament are No. 29 Felix Auger-Aliassime (a +10000 longshot at BetMGM) and No. 30 Leylah Fernandez (+15000). Auger-Aliassime’s season got off to a promising start this week with a berth in the final at the Adelaide International.
Rounding out the Canadians in the field are Rebecca Marino, Denis Shapovalov and Gabriel Diallo.