Emma Raducanu will likely be seeded at the next Australian Open, but she needs to work hard on the practice court if she wants to prove she deserves that spot.

The season started with Raducanu losing to Maria Sakkari, even though Raducanu had won all four of their previous matches.

This match was part of the United Cup, a mixed-team event. Great Britain barely beat Japan in their first match, but Raducanu's 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 loss meant a 2-0 defeat to Greece, knocking them out of the tournament.

There are reasons to cut her some slack. This is Raducanu’s fifth time at the Australian Open, but she's never arrived with a good amount of training behind her.

In 2022, she had COVID before the event. In 2023, she hurt her ankle in Auckland. In 2024, she was rusty after a nine-month break because of wrist surgery. Last year, she was dealing with a bad back spasm that made her miss three weeks of off-season practice.

This time, Raducanu spent part of her winter break in Barcelona with her new coach, Francis Roig. But she couldn't train as hard as she wanted because of a foot bruise that started before Christmas and kept her out of the match against Japan.

She and Roig have also been changing her forehand. The swing is now a bit higher and longer. We'll have to see if that gives her more power on that side, which has always been her weaker one.

Since she became famous in New York five years ago, Raducanu has been trying to fix her forehand without feeling completely happy with it. She hasn't been able to recapture the amazing timing and flow she had during her US Open win in 2021. But back then, she wasn't feeling any pressure or expectations.

In the first set of her recent match, Raducanu looked unsure and weak, like someone testing out new techniques. She was just hitting the ball back, letting Sakkari control the game with her strong shots. Sakkari had beaten Naomi Osaka.

If the whole match had been like that, it would be worrying. But Raducanu played with more power at the end of the second set. She made Sakkari work harder for a while. Her coach will probably just tell her to play more like that and less like she did in the first set.

After missing a couple of break points in the third game, Raducanu's play dropped off again. She seemed to run out of energy. She looked like she wanted to finish the match as fast as possible.

While some might see this as an excuse, it makes sense. The United Cup wasn't Raducanu's main goal for her trip to Australia. She went to Perth to get ready and got a good three-set workout. She usually plays her best at the bigger events.

Last year's Australian Open shows this. She should have lost in the first round because of back spasms.

Despite her rough start, she still beat Ekaterina Alexandrova and Amanda Anisimova before losing to Iga Swiatek. Raducanu often had tough opponents last season: all three of these players ended 2025 in the world’s top 10.

In the first match of Great Britain’s match with Greece, Billy Harris played well against Stefanos Tsitsipas. He almost won what would have been the biggest win of his career, but lost in a tie-break.

Meanwhile, Fran Jones won her match against Emma Navarro at the event in Auckland. It was only her second win against a top-50 player.

Finally, there's some good news for Jack Draper, who broke into the top five last season. He was named to the British Davis Cup team to face Norway next month.

Jacob Fearnley and Cameron Norrie will also be there, so Draper can decide later if he's ready to play his first competitive match since the US Open in August.

Draper has had a bone bruise in his elbow for over six months and recently withdrew from the Australian Open.

Carlos Alcaraz has a lot to prove heading into 2026, and Mark Woodforde—who knows a thing or two about pressure—didn’t hold back. While Jannik Sinner has the Australian Open spotlight and looks set to defend his title for a third straight year, Alcaraz arrives in Melbourne with way more baggage than usual. The big story? He split with his longtime coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and everyone wants to know why.

Once Alcaraz faces the press, you can bet they’ll grill him about Ferrero. If his game dips at the first Grand Slam of the year, people will point straight to that decision. Ferrero’s been with him since he was a teenager, so it’s a big deal. Sinner, on the other hand, has a steady team behind him and all the momentum. He’s walking in with confidence. Alcaraz? Everyone’s waiting to see how he handles being on his own.

Woodforde, who’s racked up twelve Grand Slam doubles titles, didn’t hide his admiration for both Alcaraz and Sinner. Over the past couple of years, they’ve split the last eight majors between them—and, honestly, they’ve completely changed the energy on the ATP Tour. There were real worries about men’s tennis after the domination of Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer. Woodforde said it straight: Alcaraz and Sinner have saved the sport.

“We were spoiled by those three—Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer—for so long,” Woodforde said. “People wondered what would happen when they left. Djokovic is still around, but seeing Alcaraz and Sinner step up so fast has been huge for the game.”

Of course, it’s not all sunshine for the rest of the field. According to Woodforde, a lot of guys are scrambling to figure out how to keep up with these two. They’re getting compared to the previous generation, and that’s a tough act to follow. The way those legends piled up Grand Slams was nuts. But if you ask Woodforde, watching Alcaraz and Sinner in person is just jaw-dropping. The speed, the power—they make it look easy. He even joked he’s relieved he retired more than twenty years ago and never had to face that level of play.