MELBOURNE, Australia — For the first time in 13 years, the top four men’s seeds have made it to the Australian Open semifinals. The last time that happened at the majors was the 2019 French Open, and after nearly seven years, two closely matched, tense semifinals between the four best players await.
In theory.
The reality is that as long as the top two seeds are there, their opponents have become something close to an irrelevance. Describing Novak Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam champion, and Alexander Zverev, generally accepted to be the best men’s player never to have won a major, in this way may seem harsh, but that is the extent of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s dominance over the past two years.
In that time, they have equally shared the eight available Grand Slams between them. At the end of last season, Zverev, the world No. 3, was closer in ranking points to the world No 1,000 than he was to Sinner, the world No. 2.
So while the top four making the semifinals should make for close semifinals, in this case, it is more likely to be a reminder of the gulf between Sinner and Alcaraz and everyone else, unless Zverev and Djokovic can produce a result against Alcaraz and Sinner, respectively, that goes against the tide of the last couple of years. Both have to believe that doing so is possible. Both have to believe that, as a minimum, they can show that their No. 3 and No. 4 rankings mean something other than being the best of a very distant rest.
Should they both lose on Friday, then Djokovic will leapfrog Zverev into the No. 3 spot, but the 10-time Australian Open champion will likely not be celebrating.
Even without that rankings bump, Djokovic already feels like the de facto third man. Last year, Alcaraz and Sinner only lost to each other at the Grand Slams, aside from Djokovic’s win over the Spaniard at the Australian Open. Djokovic reached all four Grand Slam semifinals. He mostly got to them with little trouble. But Sinner has beaten him in their past five meetings, and after a bruising defeat to Alcaraz at last year’s U.S. Open, he said that competing with them at the sharp end of majors was going to be borderline impossible for him physically.
This time, the 38-year-old has only played 11 sets en route to the semis, helped by Jakub Menšík’s withdrawal ahead of their fourth-round match, and then Lorenzo Musetti retiring hurt from Wednesday’s quarterfinal when up two sets to love.
Djokovic was more annoyed after that lucky escape against Musetti than he had been after any of his Slam defeats last year — aware of how badly he’d been outplayed. It’s one thing for that to happen against Sinner or Alcaraz, but against Musetti, the talented but mercurial world No. 5?
In a tetchy news conference, Djokovic called out a “disrespectful” question for not acknowledging his 24 Grand Slam titles when describing his current status as a chaser. He also made no attempt to sugarcoat the Big Two’s superiority.
“Are they better right now than me and all the other guys? Yes, they are. I mean, the quality and the level are amazing. It’s great. It’s phenomenal,” he said.
“But does that mean that I walk out with a white flag? No. I’m going to fight until the last shot, until the last point, and do my very best to challenge them.”
For Zverev, the delta that has existed between him as the world No. 3 and the top two over the last year has been a constant source of anguish. He knows he is not in their league, and after last year’s straight-sets Australian Open final defeat to Sinner, he said that there was nothing he did better than his opponent.
Alexander Zverev is attempting to reach a second consecutive Australian Open final. (Anadolu / Getty Images)
Zverev did beat Alcaraz here in the quarterfinals a couple of years ago, but watching the match back, it is clear that Alcaraz has evolved, especially in terms of his serve. Zverev, who played dominantly and aggressively for the first two sets of that meeting, will have to redouble his efforts to match Alcaraz’s raising of his ceiling the past two years.
No one has suffered at the hands of the Big Two more than Zverev, who also lost to Alcaraz in the 2024 French Open final. Djokovic could also make a case, given his three defeats at slams to both players over the last few years, but at least that was happening towards the end of a career in which he has proven himself to be the best men’s player of all time.
Friday offers both men the chance to redress the balance and show that they are moving closer to Sinner and Alcaraz rather than, as has felt more the case over the last year or so, retreating toward the rest of the increasingly forlorn chasing pack.
If they don’t, then it might be hard to shake off the feeling on Friday that the top two may as well have been playing the No. 30 and No. 40 in the world, given the likelihood of an opposite result. That’s how far away the No. 3 and No. 4 feel right now.