Australian Tennis Magazine - August/September 2026

UNE AUG / JULY / SEPT 2024 2026

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Foun dations to thrive

Naomi Osaka

BACK IN VOGUE Maya’s moment Aussie ascents Nations rise Cruz control

Wimbledon 2026 Sinner’s statement Noskova’s breakthrough

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SINNER’S STATEMENT Jannik Sinner defended his Wimbledon crown to claim his first Grand Slam title of the season and underline his authority as world No.1.

contents AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2026 VOL.51 NO.4

FEATURES 28 CRUZ CONTROL

Once a wide-eyed youngster watching his father at SW19, Cruz Hewitt created Wimbledon memories of his own in a thrilling run to the boys’ final.

MANAGING EDITOR Vivienne Christie

FOUNDING EDITOR Alan Trengove

41 PLATFORM FOR CHANGE

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dan Imhoff

PHOTOGRAPHS Getty Images Tennis Australia

Already admired for their on-court achievements, many top players are using their influence to make a meaningful difference beyond the court.

DESIGN Andrea Williamson

50 MAYA’S MOMENT

From a dream match, Maya Joint produced a dream result with victory over Serena Williams on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

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PLAYING WITH PERSPECTIVE Embracing balance on and off the court, Naomi Osaka is rediscovering the joy of tennis, along with the form that took her to world No.1.

4 AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE

Australian Tennis Magazine is published by TENNIS AUSTRALIA LTD, Private Bag 6060, Richmond, Vic 3121.

Email: editor@tennismag.com.au Printed in Australia by Ive The views expressed in Australian Tennis Magazine are not necessarily those held by Tennis Australia. While the utmost care is taken in compiling the information contained in this publication, Tennis Australia is not responsible for any loss or injury occurring as a result of any omissions in either the editorial or advertising appearing herein.

PEFC/21-31-119

54 NEW FRONTIERS

The rise of Alexandra Eala and her South-East Asian counterparts highlights the emergence of new forces challenging the game’s traditional powerhouses.

58 FOUNDATION TO THRIVE

Standout performances built on hard-fought qualifying campaigns, the college pathway and lower-level tours prove that every breakthrough has a backstory.

60 A WINNING PLAYBOOK

Top performers at Wimbledon provided valuable lessons in mindset, habits and adaptabilty that can help players of every level thrive.

64 LEARNING TO LEAD

The Australian Teams Championships has not only produced some of Australia’s current stars but also provided aspiring coaches with valuable opportunities.

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BREAKING NEW GROUND From milestone wins to career-best rankings and major breakthroughs, Australian players have achieved notable firsts in 2026.

REGULARS 6 7 10 11 34

FIRST SERVE FAN ZONE ONE TO WATCH SPOTLIGHT COURTING CONVERSATIONS

67 68 70 72 74

MY TENNIS LIFE THE SIT-DOWN SCOREBOARD RANKINGS LAST WORD

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CZECH ONE, TWO In her first Wimbledon final, Linda Noskova held her nerve for an emotional maiden major over good friend Karolina Muchova.

AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE 5

FIRST SERVE

FAMOUS

T

first steps

here is no single blueprint to become a Grand Slam champion.

While almost every professional player is driven by the dream of claiming one of the sport’s biggest prizes, their journeys often begin in very different ways.

Linda Noskova and Jannik Sinner, the 2026 Wimbledon champions, provide the perfect case in point.

Having started tennis as “just a hobby” at her local club in the tiny Czech town of Vsetin, Noskova’s promise soon became hard to dismiss.

But developing that talent was no easy feat, with her father, Drahos, working multiple jobs and the family at times sleeping overnight in railway stations as they faced financial adversity.

Sinner, on the other hand, initially pursued another sporting dream.

Before committing to a pro tennis career as a 13-year-old, he was a champion alpine skier in the Northern Italian province of Tyrol.

And while both champions celebrated the same glorious milestone on the final weekend of Wimbledon, they’d arrived at that high point in contrasting circumstances.

For first-time champion Noskova, it followed the devastation of losing

LINDA NOSKOVA

“All the sad tears, all the happy tears, all the sweat and blood put into this – it was worth it.”

6 AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE

her mother, Ivana, to cancer, just days before the 2024 Championships, making her Grand Slam breakthrough almost agonisingly poignant.

“All the sad tears, all the happy tears, all the sweat and blood put into this – it was worth it,” she told an adoring Centre Court crowd through tears in her champion’s speech.

Sinner’s triumph was in some ways far less tumultuous, with the world No.1 bringing the experience of four Grand Slam titles, including his victory at SW19 in 2025.

But as with his previous title, which followed the heartbreak of surrendering three match points to Carlos Alcaraz in the epic Roland Garros final, Sinner’s 2026 victory required resilience too.

After a humbling second-round loss in Paris, he was pushed to five sets in the first round at Wimbledon and recovered from a dropped first set in the final. “Me and Sasha (Alexander Zverev), we tried to give everything we have,” Sinner said.

Having scaled the highest peaks of the sporting world, the 2026 Wimbledon champions each remained touchingly human.

At the Champions Dinner, Sinner – admitting he was slightly tipsy following team celebrations – revealed he’d recently failed his motorcycle licence test for a fourth time.

And Noskova stressed she would continue to nurture her passion to support humanitarian, environmental and animal rights causes.

“I have always been brought up that way,” she said with a smile. “I feel like I can use my platform to do some great things off court as well.”

From contrasting starts, the Wimbledon champions had evolved into equally admirable role models. And regardless of where a tennis journey begins, theirs are corresponding examples of sacrifice and perseverance.

Vivienne Christie editor@tennismag.com.au

EVERY S A H Y E N R JOU G N I N N I G E AB HITS DIFFERENT

tennis.com.au

WIMBLEDON

SINNER’S

STATEMENT

Jannik Sinner defended his Wimbledon crown to claim his first Grand Slam title of the season and underline his authority as world No.1. MATT TROLLOPE reports

J

annik Sinner’s triumph at Wimbledon was a tale of redemption, restoration and relief.

He completed a redemptive arc, considering his startling second-round loss at Roland Garros when the prohibitive title favourite.

He restored both his own form – patchy in the early rounds at SW19 this year – and the order of men’s tennis, with the best player triumphing at one of the sport’s grandest events.

And there must have been some relief, first at surviving Alexander Zverev’s onslaught in the final, then at winning a major title after almost a year without one.

Sinner was quick to dismiss that latter notion after sealing a 6-7(7) 7-6(2) 6-3 6-4 victory and defending his Wimbledon title.

“I don’t think it’s relief,” he said. “Sometimes you have a tournament with a good outcome, and sometimes you just don’t have. There’s nothing you can really do about [it].

“There is no failure if you don’t win a Grand Slam.

It’s very, very rare days. Now I have five in my whole life… But end of the day, it’s five days of so many other days.

“You just want to enjoy it.

Today was a very tough day. If I lose, it’s still a great day. Playing a Grand Slam fi nal, it’s so rare and

SWEET REDEMPTION: Jannik Sinner rebounded from his Paris heartbreak to deny Alexander Zverev and secure back-to-back Wimbledon titles.

14 AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE

so special. So I never take things for granted. Of course, if I choose, I choose this outcome.”

His win ensured several satisfyingly round numbers.

Sinner became the 10th man in the Open era to defend a Wimbledon singles title, beating Zverev for the 10th consecutive time for his 100th Grand Slam match win.

He was also guaranteed to begin his 80th week at world No.1 after Wimbledon, yet this milestone may have felt hollow had he lost and therefore held the top ranking without a Grand Slam title in the past 52 weeks.

The last man in this position?

Marcelo Rios, more than 28 years ago.

That certainly looked possible when Zverev, playing perhaps the most confident and aggressive tennis of his life after winning his fi rst Slam at Roland Garros, clinched the fi rst set in a tiebreak – snapping a run of

14 consecutive sets lost against Sinner – then pushed the second set to the brink as well.

Here, Sinner surged, dominating the breaker then benefitting from a Zverev slip behind the baseline when facing break point midway through the third set. Sinner escaped with a hold, broke Zverev’s fearsome serve for the fi rst time in the next game, served out the third set, and never looked back.

“For me this one means a lot because was a tough one after Paris again,” said Sinner, who also lost the 2025 final from championship points up to Carlos Alcaraz. “But coming here, I tried to put myself in the best possible position to be as competitive as possible. We put in a lot of workdays in Monaco, very long. Definitely sacrificing a lot of my time and everything to be in this position.

WIMBLEDON

CZECH O TWO In her first Wimbledon final, Linda Noskova held her nerve for an emotional maiden major over good friend Karolina Muchova.

DAN IMHOFF reports

E

yes focused on the silver underside of the Venus Rosewater Dish, Linda Noskova turned the trophy carefully to take in the names engraved.

Still in her Wimbledon whites, it was one of the 21-year-old’s first stops having stepped off her Centre Court debut tired and emotional but ultimately triumphant.

There was every reason for the newest women’s Grand Slam champion to be in a daze of disbelief.

Head still spinning, many would not have given the back of their shiny new prize much consideration, but upon departing the glare of the Centre Court crowd, Noskova took her time observing the rear of the perpetual trophy.

Six Czech names who had gone before her in the Open era did not go unnoticed. Hers was about to be added.

“I feel like all of our journeys were very different, me and the other fellow Czech tennis players, but one thing that I guess we have in common is that we can just look at history,” Noskova told wtatennis.com following her breakthrough. “I feel like the fact that our country is so small means we can look at the big legends and the crowns and champions and think, ‘If it was them that won it, why not me? You know, why not us?’”

The great Martina Navratilova had already left her mark before Jana Novotna, Petra Kvitova, Marketa Vondrousova and

20 AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE

Barbora Krejcikova all added their names.

The trophy was assured of ending up in Czech hands for the third time in four years with Noskova’s good friend, Karolina Muchova, her opponent in the final.

Despite an eight-year age gap, the pair initially bonded back at the Paris Olympics in 2024 where they spent weeks

together before a run to the doubles semifinals.

For Noskova – born in Bystricka, a town of about 1000 people in the east of her country – it was her first foray beyond a sole Slam quarterfinal at Melbourne Park in 2024.

Muchova – who hailed from the larger Olomouc, a city of 105,000 people, also in the east – reached the Roland Garros

decider three years ago but had never ventured this deep at the All England Club.

Neither had even stepped onto Centre Court until the morning of their respective semifi nals when they shared a brief practice together on the turf.

Little did either realise they’d meet there again two days later after Noskova denied Marta Kostyuk in straight sets and Muchova made her second major final following a thriller against third seed Coco Gauff.

Both women saved a match point en route – Noskova against Cirstea in the third round, Muchova against Gauff in a thirdset tiebreak – and both claimed a grasscourt title in Germany in the lead-up.

A close friendship added a layer of complexity and after a more physically and emotionally sapping semifi nal, Muchova appeared flat and hapless early on.

LINDA NOSKOVA

“I was like, ‘I’m not going to take the small [trophy], I’m taking the big one’.”

NE,

CZECH MATES: Linda Noskova defeated close friend and doubles partner Karolina Muchova to claim the first all-Czech major final of the Open era.

FEATURE

F

or all she has achieved, and all that may still lie in front of her, Naomi Osaka has found her happiest place by living fi rmly in the moment.

“I think about how time is always ticking,” Osaka smiled earlier this year at the Australian Open, with her three-year-old daughter Shai clearly in mind.

“Even when I talk to my daughter now, she likes to watch my practices, which is something new, on FaceTime.

“It’s so cute because I can hear her say, ‘Go Mommy, go’, on the sidelines.”

As one of the most intriguing personalities to light up the tennis world in recent decades, Shai is not the only one cheering Osaka, now 28, along.

After her Grand Slam breakthrough at the 2018 US Open, the Japanese-born Osaka went on to add three more majors (Australian Open triumphs in 2019 and 2021, along with another US Open title in 2020) and make history as the first Asian player to rise to world No.1.

With those accomplishments came astonishing stardom, Osaka regularly featuring on ‘highest paid’ and ‘most influential’ lists for the likes of Forbes and Time magazines.

At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she became the first tennis player to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony.

But it’s balance, apparently, that’s more recently helped Osaka strike a winning formula, as she demonstrated during the most successful clay and grasscourt seasons of her career.

After a maiden appearance in the second week of Roland Garros, Osaka performed even better at Wimbledon, where she stunned world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka to reach the quarterfi nals for the fi rst time.

It followed a maiden fi nal on grass in Bad Homburg, where a niggling foot injury forced her to withdraw from the fi nal against Karolina Muchova.

Those career-defi ning breakthroughs on natural surfaces were helped by the hard work undertaken with coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, who had previously guided former world No.1 Iga Swiatek and 2012 Wimbledon fi nalist Agnieszka Radwanska.

“He brings a lot of belief.

I would say he gives me a lot of structure,” Osaka said of the confidence and clarity

that Wiktorowski has helped instil since joining her team in mid-2025. “I appreciate that, because it’s not like during the match I’m confused on what I’m doing.”

There were also targeted strategies to boost Osaka’s grasscourt prospects – most notably at Wimbledon, where she had never advanced beyond the third round before this year. “I just always in my head considered myself a hardcourt player,” the 14thseeded Osaka conceded.

Circumstances were partly a factor, with a lack of grass courts at Osaka’s training base. But under Wiktorowski’s direction, movement became a focus.

“He challenges me a lot to think outside the box … we were just doing a lot of different things,” she said, explaining how some “really weird drills” developed her perception of speed and depth of the ball.

“It’s kind of made me understand grasscourt tennis a lot more. I think when I was younger, I was a little bit more stubborn on how I wanted to play on this surface, but I realise it’s a lot more free-flowing.”

Those improvements

NAOMI OSAKA

Playing with

PERSPECTIVE Embracing balance on and off the court, Naomi Osaka is rediscovering the joy of tennis, along with the form that took her to Grand Slam heights and world No.1. By VIVIENNE CHRISTIE 30 AUSTRALIAN TENNIS MAGAZINE

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