Casper Ruud is the highest seed (No. 6) in action at the 2025 Australian Open on Saturday night when he faces Spain’s Jaume Munar on January 11 (11/1/2025) at 9 p.m. ET.

Ruud vs. Jaume will be broadcast live ESPN+ ($11.99 per month). The telecast on ESPN begins at 10:00 p.m. ET and covers the final portion of the game.

Here’s what you need to know:

What: Australian Open 2025, Round 1

WHO: No. 6 Casper Ruud against Jaume Munar

When: Saturday, January 11, 2025

Time: 9 p.m. ET (estimated start)

Where: Rod Laver Arena

TV: delayed start on ESPN2

Station finder: DirecTV, Verizon Fios, Cox, Xfinity, Spectrum, Optimum

Live stream: ESPN+. Broadcast TV streaming on fuboTV (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial), Sling (half off first month), Hulu + Live TV

BET: The Bet365 bonus code “SYRACUSE” has been updated to guarantee offers worth $1,000 and $150 in January 2025

Here’s a recent AP story from The Associated Press:

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — When Carlos Alcaraz is on the court for a training session, perhaps working on his newly revamped serving stroke, he does so to reinforce a game already good enough to win four Grand Slam titles win.

He also has his eye on his young rival Jannik Sinner.

“The good thing for me is when I see him winning titles, when I see him at the top of the rankings, it forces me to train even harder every day.” “In practice I just think about what things “I have to improve to play against him,” Alcaraz said on Saturday, a day before the start of the Australian Open. “I think that’s great for me: having him (and) having such a great rivalry just to force me to do (my best) every day.”

The 21-year-old Alcaraz and the 23-year-old Sinner enter the 2025 men’s tennis season as the frontrunners and have had a year that meant great things for both. With Rafael Nadal now joining retired Roger Federer and 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic remaining on tour as the only remaining member of the Big Three, it appears Alcaraz and Sinner have separated themselves from the rest of the next generation, one win each won two of the four Slam singles trophies in 2024.

Forever, it seemed, the sport’s major laurels would be dominated by Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, and anyone hoping to do so would have to defeat at least one, often even two, of these trio.

The names have changed, but the dynamics are similar.

“I have the feeling that with Jannik and Carlos things were kind of going in the same direction, just with new people. You have to go through them to win big tournaments. It’s that simple,” said Alexander Zverev, a two-time major finalist who is seeded No. 2 at Melbourne Park, between No. 1 Sinner and No. 3 Alcaraz. “They both won two Grand Slams (last) year. And they are easily the two best players in the world. And you have to beat them to win the tournament.”

Sinner is the defending champion in Australia and also won the US Open in September, part of a season in which he won eight titles at 73-6 – but also struggled with a doping case that saw him twice test positive for trace amounts of one anabolic steroid, blamed his inadvertent exposure to a banned substance through a massage given by his trainer, and was exonerated. (The World Anti-Doping Agency appealed this ruling; a closed hearing will be held at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland on April 16 and 17.)

Alcaraz was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Zverev at the Australian Open last January, but then triumphed at the French Open, where he beat Zverev in the final, and at Wimbledon, where he beat Djokovic in the final for the second year in a row.

On Sunday, Zverev will face wildcard entry Lucas Pouille in the evening after defending champion Aryna Sabalenka takes on 2017 US Open winner Sloane Stephens. Other top names scheduled for Day 1 include 2024 Australian runner-up and Paris Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen and three-time major finalist Casper Ruud.

Alcaraz, Sinner and Djokovic, as well as five-time major champion Iga Swiatek and 2023 US Open champion Coco Gauff, will all start on Monday.

If Alcaraz, whose first major title came at the 2022 US Open at the age of 19 and helped him to his debut at No. 1, wins this Australian Open, he would be the youngest man in tennis history to win a Grand Slam in his career has completed at least one championship from each of the sport’s four most prestigious events.

“It’s truly remarkable,” said former player Feliciano Lopez, “what he’s accomplished in the last three years.”

Alcaraz and Sinner are already developing quite a head-to-head rivalry that has already shown the potential to be as memorable as Federer vs. Nadal or Djokovic vs. Nadal.

“They have more eyes on us,” Sinner said, “because this is a match that most people want to see.”

Overall, Alcaraz leads 6:4.

In 2024 alone, he went 3-0 against Sinner, who was 73-3 against everyone else, with setbacks only against Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“When I play against him, I have a slightly different attitude. I mean, when you play against the … best player in the world, you have to do something different — a different preparation or a different mindset or whatever,” said Alcaraz, who was 54-13 last season with four titles won. “Whenever I face him, I just know that I have to do my best if I want to win. If I have a bad day against Jannik, you’ll probably lose 99% of the time.”

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