Former World No.1 Mats Wilander has made a bold prediction for the 2025 season. Wilander is known for making strong predictions and has done so multiple times. However, this time he has outdone himself. The seven-time Major champion has said that either Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner will win the calendar Grand Slam.
The Calendar Grand Slam is a tennis achievement in which a player wins all four Majors in a calendar year. Rod Laver is the only player to have achieved this in the Open Era, which signifies how bold Wilander’s prediction is. Sinner and Alcaraz are the present and future of tennis and will dominate the Slams for a long time but saying one of them will win all four in a year doesn’t make much sense when they will be fighting each other.
This prediction would have made much more sense if he had backed just one player. If there are two options to do it…it means they are both good enough to do it…which means one doing it is very unlikely to actually occur, as one would stop the other. This happened to the Big 3 as well. They all got in each other’s way. Novak Djokovic got the closest to achieving the calendar Grand Slam in 2021, but succumbed to pressure and lost in the final against a brilliant Daniil Medvedev.
Wilander’s prediction also means he doesn’t see Djokovic winning a Slam in 2025. Alexander Zverev is knocking on the doors too and will give his best to win his first Major. However, anything is possible in sports, so it will be interesting to watch how Wilander’s prediction plays out.
Main Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
